Bad BLood: Part Two
by PJDickinson
Summary: Giles is missing. Buffy and Anya have accidentally set out to find him.


BAD BLOOD A 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' story. P.J. Dickinson  
  
  
  
Part Two  
  
"I don't believe in science. All those little bits and molecules that no- ones ever seen." -Drucilla.  
  
Prologue: The Briefing. 22:20 hours  
  
Giles was escorted through a pair of reinforced metal doors into a large room with a high ceiling. His guard sat him in a seat at a circular table, removed his maglocks and left. The doorway sealed behind him with a pneumatic hiss. There were three people already in the briefing room waiting for him. Finn was perched on the edge of a metal bench, beside him stood a smaller man with a shocking mass of red hair. This smaller man was wearing a white lab coat, the worldwide uniform of scientists and doctors.  
  
The third person was sitting opposite Giles at the round table, about fifteen feet away. He was mostly in shadow but from what Giles could make out he fitted the classic stereotype of an American army general. He was wide shouldered with a barrel chest covered in a rainbow of ribbons. He wore his cap down over his eyes preventing direct contact. The peak came down almost to the tip of his nose and was sharper than the parting in a nerd's hair.  
  
"Time is of the essence," began Riley," so I'll keep this brief. This is Professor Farness. He is in charge of project Tantalus." Tantalus thought Giles. He had had one himself in his flat in Oxford. It was a wooden box used for storing decanters. The decanters were visible but without the key they couldn't be accessed, unless of course you had a straw. He found the name intriguing.  
  
"The generals name is unimportant, all you need to know is that all units in this base report directly to me. I report to the general." Giles sneaked a look out of the corner of his eye at the military man. Giles counted five stars on his lapel. Good grief he thought, the man was probably on first name terms with the President. Giles decided to play it nonchalant.  
  
"Commander Finn, please feel free to interest me any time you are ready."  
  
"Certainly." Said Riley his mouth twisted into a hard line. He removed a small, silver remote from a pocket and pointed it at the doors. A steel bar slid out of one wall through some collars and buried itself in the opposite wall. On a control panel at the side of the doors red lights began to pulse. They were well and truly locked in now supposed Giles. Riley slid off the bench between him and Professor Farness and from within is depths a huge sheet of what looked like glass glided upwards until its top edge was touching a metal lined trench in the ceiling. The lights in the room dimmed to almost darkness and the screen began to glow from within. The screen was enormous, maybe five by ten meters. Images began to move within it, but they didn't seem to be confined to the glass. They appeared to have a three dimensional quality which Giles found initially difficult to focus on. Suddenly, as if a switch in his brain had been flipped he figured out the optical illusion. The swirling red visuals against the black background became understandable. At that moment they launched themselves out into the air around them until Giles felt that he was actually within the screen. He could see Riley moving before him, so he had to assume that that was the direction the floor was in. He fought the nauseating vertigo the disorientation brought.  
  
"The Milky Way." said the Commander.  
  
"Oh good God Finn. How long is this going to take?"  
  
Riley ignored the Watcher and instead reached into one of the outer spiraling arms of the galaxy. The image concentrated on this region of space. The solar system filled the air around them. Giles flinched involuntarily as Neptune soared before his eyes. Riley stepped through the sun and cupped Earth in his hands. For the first time Giles noticed that Riley's right hand had been replaced with a robotic gauntlet. He wondered how much of Riley's body had been altered in this way and exactly what had happened to him. Now was not the time.  
  
"Earth." said Finn. The image of the third planet orbiting Helios expanded filling the room. Giles wondered where exactly on its surface he was. Riley touched the image again. The geographic representation was overlaid with a wire frame structure that resembled a soccer ball. As the earth rotated Riley pointed to different sections.  
  
"The Bermuda triangle.Loch Ness.the Dacono ruins.the Hellmouth in Sunnydale. Where there is smoke," he said," there is a section underlying the pattern." Giles had to admit that his intellectual curiosity had been piqued. Where was Riley going with all this?  
  
Riley waved his gauntlet through the Earth and the geography dissolved leaving the spinning wire frame.  
  
"Do you know what this is Mr. Giles?"  
  
"Riley's Believe it or not." Riley smiled a thin smile.  
  
"No. A Buckyball."  
  
"Of course. How dim of me." Mumbled Giles to himself.  
  
"The third state of carbon, after graphite and diamond. Two scientists Buckminster and Fullerene theorized its existence. Only after it was conceived was it discovered in nature. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Riley's voice trailed off, he seemed to be in a daze of some sort.  
  
"Have you brought me all this way to reveal the bedroom secrets of Mrs. Chicken? I assure you I will not. Her honor is safe with me."  
  
"Shut up," barked the General over his shoulder," or we'll see what having your legs cut off does for your concentration."  
  
Giles reconsidered his decision to play it nonchalant. Riley continued with the briefing. He touched the wire frame and it reverted to the turning Solar System. Giles ducked anticipating the return of Neptune.  
  
"You may be thinking that this is the Solar System. You'd be wrong this is a carbon atom. Those aren't planets Mr. Giles they are electrons. We went from the galactic to the sub atomic and you noticed no difference. Fractals Mr. Giles. Two natural systems identical in complexity with the same repeating patterns yet separated by the Grand Canyon in scale."  
  
Giles was a man who held intellect in high regard, he was very proud of his intelligence and the discipline it had required to refine his mind. If there is one thing no educated man likes it is to be talked down to. Something about the way Finn kept referring to him as Mr. Giles made him want to break his neck.  
  
"Its identical to the previous image you showed me."  
  
"Actually," said Professor Farness," its not. If it was the solar system there would be nine orbiting bodies and that would be a flourine atom. This has six, its carbon."  
  
Giles fumed.  
  
"I am still unenlightened as to why I am here." Professor Farness stepped forwards and indicated the carbon nucleus that Giles had mistaken for the sun.  
  
"This is the bit of the atom that has all the mass. The weight of the orbiting electrons is negligible; they are more wave than particle. The more you know about their position around the nucleus the less you know about the direction they are moving in and vice versa. They can however be defined by their wave function."  
  
"Wave function?" Giles was beginning to feel badly out of his depth.  
  
"Are you familiar with New Age crystal therapy?"  
  
"I am. I have used it many times in the training of the Slayer." Giles felt happier hearing words he recognized.  
  
"Each crystal has its own harmonic or wave function that identifies it. So too does every particle in the universe, not just the electrons."  
  
"So the nucleus has its own harmonic then?" ventured Giles.  
  
"Ah no," sighed Professor Farness," if only it were that simple."  
  
He brushed the image of the carbon nucleus and it dissolved into a myriad of smaller particles. He began to recite different names, all strange to Giles. Quarks, gluons, Higgs bosons.  
  
"Sadly this signifies the limits of mans knowledge. What you are seeing are representations of the most esoteric fragments of man's understanding of Particle Physics. This is where energy meets matter, the theoretical worlds of Einstein and Heisenberg."  
  
Giles shook his head as the protoparticles began to interact. He sympathized with how Buffy must have felt during their many training sessions. He decided he must apologize for the many times he had been unintentionally obtuse. As he watched, the protoparticles mixed and spiraled around him, blending like milk in a cup of hot tea, finally settling into red swirls against a dark background.  
  
"The universe.' said Giles aghast.  
  
"Fractals Mr. Giles." said Riley; he remembered this realization and he sympathized.  
  
Professor Farness switched on the lights and the images disappeared as the screen slid back down into the bench. He sat at the circular table with Giles and the stoic general.  
  
"Cosmologists assure us that for the universe to exist as it does then there must be three times the mass we can see. The matter we can see is called Baryonic. It's all the planets and stars and comets and plants and basically everything we can touch. The other two thirds is called dark matter. Protoparticles like I showed you that are spread throughout the universe in which the Baryonic matter floats like vegetables in soup."  
  
"And once more Dr Fanny Craddock I implore you. Why have you brought me here?"  
  
"We have discovered that the cosmologists are wrong. Only one third of the missing mass is dark matter."  
  
"In the vernacular of my Slayer 'hit me'."  
  
"One third, the baryonic matter is where life is found. The second is the dark matter."  
  
"And the remainder?"  
  
"The last third is the opposite of baryonic matter. It is anti-life. In terms you may understand more clearly; Demonic matter."  
  
Giles leaned back in his chair. One hand came up to his mouth.  
  
"Dear God," he breathed," What have you idiots done?"  
  
"God had nothing to do with it," snapped the general. "You are dealing with a force far more powerful and considerably more real, the red white and blue of the United States military."  
  
Giles, a European, felt the urge to phone his embassy.  
  
*** ***  
  
"I take it that you are familiar with the philosophies of Antiquity."  
  
Giles nodded.  
  
" Socrates believed in the existence of four elements from which all matter was composed."  
  
"Fire, air, earth and water. Yes?"  
  
"The Socratic elements are all for want of a better word positive. Opposite poles do not cancel out; fire simply opposes the influence of water. For cancellation you have to go to the anti-elements. Those elements that compose the anti-baryonic third of the universe."  
  
"The demonic matter."  
  
"Exactly. The consequence of the interaction of the four elements is the fifth element Life, or as Aristotle called it 'Ether'. The demonic fifth element opposes positive life. Life and anti-Life are mutually exclusive. They are destined to compete for control of the universe."  
  
"So where is this anti-life?"  
  
"Surely you are more qualified to answer that question than I am." Professor Farness leaned away from the table.  
  
"Ah. I understand. In other dimensions." Giles was a member of the Watchers council. It was not an opportunity afforded to just anyone. Only those who could trace their lineage back to the first Watchers were afforded that compliment.  
  
"Perhaps Mr. Giles," said Riley," it is time you talked. Our knowledge is extensive but we are still unclear about the timescale being contemplated."  
  
Giles pressed the tips of his fingers together. He thought for a second and then began. "We are very ancient. The Vatican at two thousand years is old. The Watchers Council measures its age in dozens of Vaticans."  
  
Riley sat at the table near Farness. Even the general had moved incrementally in the English mans direction.  
  
"At one time far in the past both demon and human shared the planet we called Mother. There was a terrible struggle for dominance of this fertile land. It is recounted in extremely purple Babylonian prose in the Scrolls of the Nephilim, if you are interested. Anyway, the Watchers Council was a group of humans who we would nowadays consider as being prehistoric. They opposed the demons."  
  
Giles had never before told this story, not even to Buffy. The true history of mankind and the Watchers role in humanities development was a secret that the Council kept to itself. But now that he had started he could not stop himself. He was a proud man and like all men whose power is never truly acknowledged he was prone to bouts of pomposity. The Initiative had humiliated him in a hundred different ways over the past few hours. But now he had their interest and he relished the attention. He continued unabated.  
  
"What you must accept is that we are not the first people to have considered themselves 'rulers' of this planet. There have been many incarnations of the human race. What is now considered human is in fact a much diluted and inbred faction of what went before. Many civilizations have existed and fallen and been forgotten before now and the beginning. That the Watchers Council has maintained any of its purity is nothing short of a miracle."  
  
"And yet maintain its purity it has. Countless civilizations have risen and collapsed and their knowledge lost to all but us. All Watchers share blood with the first ones, those prime humans who overthrew the demon overlords and cast them into their respective dimensions. Integral to their victory was the creation of the Slayer. A being that was formed by dark incantations indeed. She was brought forth to protect humanity yet her power is derived from the same source as the demons."  
  
Riley and the general, both military men exchanged glances. Giles knew what they were thinking.  
  
"It was to say the least a risky tactic."  
  
He didn't want to lose them. The words were coming out of his mouth unbidden and he couldn't stop himself. He wanted to prove to them that he was more than he seemed.  
  
"It is our profound duty as Watchers that as each new Slayer is called she is properly guided in the exertion of her powers for they are as dark as those she is intended to protect us from."  
  
"There exist many dimensions. Hell as we know it is the core dimension of demonic life. It is ancient in the same way Life itself is ancient. Somewhere in the nether regions there exists a dimension of pure Hell, a place where the demons are legend and yet real. It is a deep and lost dimension that is the source of demon's myths about themselves. The demonic entities that exist there are of such a magnitude that they would make the Greek Gods of Olympus seem as powerful as Snap, Crackle and Pop the Rice Krispies men. It is from that most dark dimension that the Slayer's power was derived."  
  
Riley leaned forward.  
  
"Giles," he said. "I think we all know where you are talking about. We accidentally opened a doorway to it downstairs and we can't keep it closed much longer."  
  
Giles stared at the serious side of Riley's face. He seemed so sincere, so childlike in his imploring honesty. Giles began to laugh. He kept laughing. He couldn't help himself. This would make Armageddon feel like a bit of a runny nose. The generals barking threats just made him laugh all the harder. They were all going to die. He slapped the stupid table with one hand and laughed his guts out.  
  
  
  
Secret Initiative Base  
  
  
  
One.  
  
  
  
Buffy had fallen asleep. The stress of her aching tooth combined with the effects of the painkillers and whiskey had sent her over into a fitful rest. Anya and Spike chatted sporadically as the BMW hurtled across the dark Californian mountains and down into the desert beyond.  
  
Occasionally the BMWs speed attracted attention. Red and blue flashing lights would whip out of slip roads but Giles infatuated sports car soon reduced them to little twinkles on the receding horizon.  
  
Anya and Spikes conversation consisted mostly of reminiscing. Demons and magic creatures they had once known. Anya's memory went back further than Spikes by a few centuries and she took pleasure in filling him in on the less than prodigious beginnings of beings that had one time or another either kicked Spikes ass or been the ass-kickee.  
  
Sometimes Spike laughed as he recalled the many lives he had put an end to. Anya quite liked Spike. She found him passably attractive in an undead kind of way. He was funny and didn't care whether anyone liked him or not. Anya had never known Spike before the Initiative had neutered him so she had no memory of what it was to fear him. In truth she felt for the man within the demon. She knew what it was like to be disliked for what you had once been. Anya was very into second chances.  
  
However as he talked, smoking his cigarettes and air surfing with one hand out the window she got a clearer idea of why every time Xander spoke his name it was with disdain. Spike was being careful she realized. The reminiscing had revolved around supernatural entities. He had been very careful to avoid the subject of mortals he had interacted with in the past. This spoke volumes to Anya.  
  
She kept her hands tight on the wheel as a police cruiser came out of nowhere ahead of them and tried to block the road. The steering wheel moved of its own accord sending them into the scrub before guiding them through a rising cloud of dust and back onto the road. Spike leaned out the window and gave them the fingers. For the first time the police shot at them. A few badly aimed bullets cut the air around the BMW.  
  
"Jesus," said Spike, "looks like the boys in blue are onto us."  
  
"Should we wake Buffy?"  
  
"Yeah. Why not? Not right she should be missing all the fun." He leaned forwards to wake the Slayer and then stopped.  
  
"What's wrong with her?"  
  
"She's not been feeling well. She's got a bad toothache. It's probably infected." From the corner of her eye she watched Spike. His chin was resting on the shoulder of Buffy's seat and he was peering at the Slayer the way new parents peer over a crib at their cub. He reached down and removed an errant lock of hair that had wrapped itself around her nose. He stroked it back into place.  
  
"Her mouth is very swollen," said Anya.  
  
"Yeah." said the vampire, "and her heart is erratic and I can smell the toxins in her blood. Too much booze for Buffy." There was tenderness to his voice that impressed Anya.  
  
"Guess she won't be needing this anymore." Spike reached over and plucked the nearly empty bottle of Wild Turkey from Buffy's lap. He settled back down in the back seat. The car drove onwards. Inexorably taking them closer to Giles. Anya mentally backtracked to what they had been talking about before the police had shot at them.  
  
"So how many people do you think you've killed?"  
  
She knew that if he had a reflection his flinty eyes would be glinting in the rear view mirror. As it was she could feel him glaring at the back of her head. She had crossed a line. Xander had told her about this sort of thing.  
  
"Enough to survive pet. I was no Angel. Never a sadist."  
  
"Have you ever put a number to the names?"  
  
"Have you?" retorted Spike.  
  
He glugged from the bottle of Turkey.  
  
"There were times when many people died. When it was just Dru and I fewer died, just enough to keep us healthy and entertained. But back when it was the four of us. When Darla was the boss." He trailed off a humorless smile on his face.  
  
"It was always the fight with me love. I lived to win. When I had a soul I never came out on top. But now, well Spike is a name to be feared. Ask the Slayer. I'm the only one that's done it twice. The only vamp that's ever put two of the bitches to my mouth."  
  
"Not any more though." Said Anya tapping the back of her head.  
  
Spike slowly leaned forwards. He breathed fumes of alcohol and fetid animal blood over the back of her neck.  
  
"If you are a human that is," he hissed, "otherwise beware. The fight isn't over yet demon; it's just a new round. By the way you might want to go round that police roadblock."  
  
The police had obviously radioed ahead and predicting their route had thrown up a barricade. At least seven cars were parked across the lanes two vehicles deep. The spotlights on their roofs clicked on and angled up the road towards the approaching BMW.  
  
"I can't see," wailed Anya trying to turn the wheel. The car maintained its sub-sonic path that took them straight through the roadblock. Muzzle flashes appeared from between the Arizona State Troopers cars. The windscreen lit up in a sudden bright red luminescence.  
  
"What the Hell was that?" shouted Spike.  
  
As they got closer the trooper's aim improved. They pumped their shotguns furiously trying to destroy the cars engine. Each time the shots were accurate the BMW would light up with a deep red protective light that stopped the ammunition inches from the bodywork. The pellets then rattled off the paint as the car surged through them.  
  
"I don't think we're going to stop," yelled Spike.  
  
"Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh crap."  
  
The BMW was attracting so much firepower that as it tore down the road it flared as if its fuel tank was on fire. It streaked along the highway with its three occupants and took the roadblock on dead center. Inside the car the impact felt like they had accidentally and regrettably run over a rodent instead of totaling tens of thousands of taxpayers dollars.  
  
Spike watched through the rear window. The State troopers dived for cover as their vehicles ricocheted around them. One car was pinched between two others and sent straight up into the air where it did two full revolutions before crashing back to earth with an impact that shattered all of its windows. The shards scattered across the highway like diamonds. One trooper was still doing somersaults high in the air as Spike leaned out the window and hollered, "ALRIGHT! We Rock!"  
  
"They were shooting at us. They shouldn't have been shooting at us. We have rights. They should have read us them so we would have known what they are." babbled Anya.  
  
"Where's my whiskey gone?"  
  
"Buffy you're awake. I can't take it anymore. I run the Magic Box and count the money and love Xander. I don't do this. Giles is your Watcher; he's your problem. I don't know what I'm doing here. He dies I get the shop. Why am I here? And look how I'm dressed." Anya took her hands from the wheel for the first time since they had left Sunnydale and sobbed into them.  
  
"Better get your act together love cause we got more company of the flashing lights variety."  
  
"Spike! What the Hell are you doing here?" shouted Buffy. "Anya get a grip. Where are we? Tell me what's going on."  
  
"Just look at the clothes I'm going to die in. It's not fair. It's just not fair."  
  
Buffy grabbed the steering wheel and tried to assess the situation. Her head was pounding from the alcohol and she had the worst case of cottonmouth in the world.  
  
"Spike I have no idea where you came from and I don't care just tell me what's happening. Quickly."  
  
"Giles mental car just ploughed through a dozen of Arizona's finest, we haven't the remotest idea where we are, you don't need to hold the wheel cause the car steers by itself and there are two super charged highway eaters right on our ass. There, that quick enough?"  
  
"They catching?"  
  
"Nah. Just holding on."  
  
The BMW lurched left and through the windscreen the moon performed a sickening ninety-degree turn. The car bounced across some rough desert before it found a small dirt track.  
  
"That slowed them but they're still on us."  
  
"Is there anything we can throw out the window to slow them down?"  
  
"Just Spike." Said Anya recovering some of her decorum.  
  
"Hey!"  
  
"I'll bear it in mind for later Anya."  
  
"Hey! I just bloody said Hey. We are not throwing Spike out the bleeding window ok?" Buffy smiled at Spike. His vampire senses could read her like a scanning electron microscope but he couldn't decipher that smile.  
  
"Car seems to know what it's doing so I reckon we're just along for the ride." He said sullenly, slouching back in the seat.  
  
Buffy nodded and checked the weapons at her feet. She checked the tension of the crossbow and the sharpness of the blade of the axe and that Mr. Pointy was where he was supposed to be. She was nervous and in desperate need of a glass of water. Her tooth was starting to hurt again.  
  
At some point they were going to come to a stop, who knew what was going to happen then? They would be near Giles, or at least as close as Anya's magic could take them. Would he be all right? Would whoever had taken him just let him go? She severely doubted it. The more she thought about it the less she thought it was the Watchers Council that were behind this. This just felt wrong for them. They didn't hide in the desert miles from anywhere or anyone. A suspicion began to grow in her mind and it brought a very unpleasant prospect with it.  
  
She wound down the window of the car and let the cool air blow into her mouth. So here she was, in a possessed car hurtling through the night with Anya, who would need protecting and Spike, who she dare not turn her back on straight towards a probable fight to the death against unknowable numbers of unknown enemies in order to rescue her Watcher. Except for her damn tooth life really didn't get much better than this.  
  
"I think we're about to leave the road," said Anya. The Beemer decided not to take a turn in the dirt track and instead continued in a straight line through the tumbleweed.  
  
"Anya," said Buffy pointing ahead, "What's that?"  
  
Anya peered over the steering wheel and squinting shook her head.  
  
"Electric perimeter fence," said Spike from the back. Buffy was able to read 'Keep Out' on a sign before the BMW sliced right through it. The wire of the fence recoiled like a sprung mattress sparking uselessly. The two pursuing troopers braked hard and came to a stop at the edge of the prohibited area.  
  
"Something tells me that we may have stood a better chance with the peelers," said Spike. Buffy shrugged and inside the car all three grew silent. They were close now, they could feel it.  
  
Giles' car sped through the desolation and began to climb a steep incline. It crested to the top and carried on through the air. Inside the car the sky seemed to drop like a curtain showing less earth and more stars. Buffy' stomach came up into her throat then the car slammed down bouncing hard on the suspension. Before them the view had changed drastically. It now resembled a scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The desert was frying pan flat for miles in every direction. Directly before them, perhaps two miles away, was a military base awash with lights. A large airplane was slowly lifting off and even this far away its straining engines shook the car. The base seemed to be composed of hangers and smaller, longer barracks that twisted like snakes resembling a maze.  
  
"Initiative," said Buffy, "Has to be." Spikes hand instinctively went to the back of his head.  
  
"What would the Initiative want with Giles?" asked Anya.  
  
"I don't know and I care even less. They took my Watcher without asking. I'm taking him back."  
  
"You seriously thinking about taking on a whole army base Slayer?"  
  
"I'd rather not Spike but Giles is coming home with us one way or another."  
  
Spike flashed a smile at her and smacked one fist into his hand, "Bring it on."  
  
"Oh fuck," said Anya suddenly, "Oh fuckity fuck." She pointed towards the approaching base. Two lights had detached themselves from the base and had risen up into the air and were now coming straight for them.  
  
"Choppers," said Buffy in a flat voice.  
  
"Was that the right time to use that swear word? Xander said it's very bad and should only be used at moments of great anger or to turn him on during sex."  
  
"Yeah darlin' I think that was definitely the right time. Slayer?"  
  
"Yes I think it was the right time too."  
  
"I meant, what about the choppers."  
  
"I have an axe. Is that any help?"  
  
"Against Vikings, yes but those look more like Apaches." One of the assault choppers moved behind the other and almost immediately their midi-cannons opened up. Four trails of bullet misses raked the ground in front of the BMW throwing desert high into the air. The impact against the car was deafening. Anya screamed unable to stop herself. The window beside Buffy exploded inwards showering her with hot glass.  
  
"Spell can't cope with this shit," yelled Spike  
  
Buffy grabbed the crossbow, leaned out the window and aimed at the rear gunship as it roared past them. She squeezed the trigger and the wooden bolt soared beautifully through the air. Guided by Buffy's Slayer reflexes the medieval weapon managed to tap against the helicopters Plexiglas windshield. It was a great tap though.  
  
The choppers wheeled above them turning for another pass. This time they would match their speed with the car so they wouldn't fly past. The soldiers could then take it apart slowly and precisely.  
  
"Bollocks to this," said Spike and tried to dive back through the hole in the seat.  
  
"Buffy?"  
  
"Keep going Anya."  
  
They were in the compound now. To their right and left barracks whisked past. Buffy reckoned they wouldn't fire within the base for fear of hitting their own men and equipment. She was wrong. The Apaches opened up again. Most of the bullets seemed to be missing but one of the bastards aim was dead on. When you're dealing with thirty-mm ammunition coming from helicopters one is all you need to get right.  
  
The car's bonnet exploded in front of them cob webbing the windshield. The car died on the spot, only momentum kept it going forwards now. Anya grabbed the wheel as she struggled to control the eighty-mile an hour vehicle. She hit the brakes. The car slewed from side to side heading directly for one of the squat buildings.  
  
"Brace yourself Anya," shouted Buffy folding her arms across her face.  
  
The Apaches pulled back and rose straight up into the air. They didn't want to get caught in any unnecessary explosions.  
  
The apple of Giles eye hit the concrete wall at over fifty miles an hour. It stopped at the exact spot the building started and all its energy was transferred to its passengers. It rose up at the rear and the wall flew apart as Spikes unrestrained body flew through the windscreen like a flapping black cannon ball. Buffy's air bag inflated and she head butted it spectacularly. The pain was instant and intense. She thought of the Aerosmith video where the wee guy from the Terminator movie stole a car and wrecked it for the laughs. That hadn't looked like it had hurt at all. What a load of crap.  
  
There was something in her mouth. She put a finger into the bleeding orifice and found that her diseased tooth was no longer in her gum.  
  
"Oh," said Anya, "Your tooth came out. That's supposed to be good luck. If you put it under your pillow you'll get money although I don't think the fairies like rotten teeth so you'll probably not get very much. Nasty little bunny fanciers."  
  
"You okay Anya?"  
  
"No. I think I might have wet myself."  
  
There were shouts from somewhere to their left.  
  
"Anya. We have to move. Now."  
  
"But what about my urine?"  
  
Buffy extracted herself from the wreck and physically hauled Anya out of her own seat. Anya's legs were shaky but she managed to stay on her feet.  
  
"Where to now?" she asked.  
  
"I don't know. Just run."  
  
And that was exactly what the two women did.  
  
  
  
Two.  
  
  
  
Professor Farness led Giles into a small antechamber off the main corridor on this level. Giles was unsure how deep they were underground though during the elevator ride down his ears had popped. It felt warmer down here. Perhaps the increase in the ambient temperature was simply due to the rift, and the energies it was throwing off. But it may also have meant they were very, very deep under the ground.  
  
The professor spoke into a grill and a door before him opened. He motioned Giles in. The door closed behind the Englishman. There was another door before him identical to the one he had just passed through and on the two walls that did not have doors there were racks of safety clothing. The professor indicated that Giles should put a set on and then began to undress. He quickly stripped naked and pulled on the one-piece jump suit the army had issued them with.  
  
Giles examined his own suit. It was made of a black synthetic material lighter than cotton but with the texture of rubber. He looked at the scientist beside him. He was struggling with the skintight suit and it was not a flattering sight. Giles realized that it would be very easy to over- power the other man but what would he do then and where would he go and who would deal with the rift. He knew where his responsibilities lay.  
  
With a deep sigh Giles began to remove his own clothes. Would this days indignities never end? He turned his back to Farness and stripped down, taking time to fold his slacks and shirt.  
  
"I didn't think you were the type."  
  
Giles froze.  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
Professor Farness indicated Giles tattoo.  
  
"Ah. Thank god." Said Giles as he continued pulling on the sticky jumpsuit. "Although I have always been descended from the first Watchers I have not always seen eye to eye with the Council. There have been times of estrangement."  
  
"Couple of skeletons in the closet Mr. Giles?"  
  
"Its hard to be a man and not have a few regrets." Giles put a lot of emphasis on the word 'man'. Farness picked up on it.  
  
"Mr. Giles I can assume what you think of me. Of us. I do not know what methods were used to bring you here but I am sure you didn't travel first class."  
  
Giles pulled up the hood of his protective suit and glared at the other man.  
  
"Don't be naive Mr. Giles. Blame me if it makes you feel better but don't be naïve. I'm just a man trying to do his job the same as everyone else. We have more in common than you might believe."  
  
"What could we possibly have in common?" spat Giles.  
  
"We're expendable." Said Farness.  
  
Giles nodded. He looked at the thin man before him in his badly fitting suit that kept none of his secrets. An understanding was reached between the two. They were perhaps not friends though neither were they enemies.  
  
"The way you call me Mr. Giles irritates me greatly. My name is Rupert."  
  
"Terry." Said Farness.  
  
The scientist pulled on a hard hat and a facemask with filters and polarized lenses. Giles did the same thing. He was nearly completely blind due to the black eyepieces. The professor's voice came through on an earphone hidden in the mask.  
  
"In the next room is the rift. I think it is important that you see what is ahead of us for yourself."  
  
The second door in the room slid open and Giles realized why the dark lenses were necessary. It was like walking into the heart of a star.  
  
*** ***  
  
There were shouts coming from all around them now. Buffy put her hands in Anya's back and made the girl run quicker. They ducked between oil drums and crates covered in brown camouflage netting. When they ran along the high white walls of the hangers they kept low, petrified of being spotted. Buffy was convinced that they would be shot on the spot and she had no desire to find out what that felt like.  
  
On either side of them the pair they were surrounded by the barrack buildings. They were all low, squat, flat roofed and windowless. Buffy leapt up and grabbing the edge of one roof pulled herself up to have a look about. Anya sat down in some shadows and tried not to think about how scared she was. Suddenly Buffy started motioning frantically. Anya scrambled under some netting just as a squad of heavily armored Initiative soldiers ran past. She could hear their boots clattering on the wooden walkways that seemed to run all over the base. Anya thought that the line of men was never going to stop.  
  
Eventually the sound died away. They hadn't been found. Anya nearly jumped out of her skin when Buffy slipped around the crate and with a thin smile grabbed Anya and hoisted her to her feet. The two ran in the direction the soldiers had just come from. There was a door open in one of the barracks.  
  
Buffy had run along the roof when she had seen where the squad had emerged from and leaping silently to the ground had rolled behind them and wedged Mr. Pointy in the doorway jamming the entrance open. She retrieved the stake and let the door close behind them as together they slipped into the Initiatives base. Although the door had been old and weathered on the outside, the inside was a different story.  
  
It was exactly how Buffy expected an Initiative base to be. The door clicked shut and the hot and dark desert was replaced with a sterile and white interior.  
  
"It's very clean," said Anya.  
  
"It's certainly not contaminated with English men."  
  
"I just meant. Its better than crawling around filthy graveyards and crypts."  
  
"At least they have places to hide and weapons to use." Anya gave up as a grim faced Buffy took a few steps down the corridor swinging her axe from side to side. The corridor was a perfectly straight room that simply seemed to act as a connection between outside and inside. About twenty meters ahead there were a pair of doors that looked like the entrance to an elevator shaft. Half way along the corridor the floor began to slope; from the level of the outside down to the elevator doors.  
  
"Come on Anya." Said Buffy, "We have to keep moving."  
  
"We were shot at."  
  
"I noticed Anya."  
  
"I've never been shot at before. If I get my hands on a gun I'm shooting back. I've had enough of people shooting at me tonight."  
  
"No-one is getting shot while I'm around Anya." Buffy slipped an arm around Anya and helped her along. Just at that moment the outside door was opened just enough to allow a soldier to poke the barrel of a gun through.  
  
Buffy felt the change in air pressure and reacted instinctively. Her Slayer senses knew that she had just become open to an attack from behind. With movements that she performed faster than she could think them Buffy changed her grip on Anya. She slid her right forearm into Anya's armpit, dropped the axe, took hold of Anya's wrist with her left hand, then snapping Anya's arm into a lock, bent it across her own chest and with a twisting snap catapulted the other woman down the corridor. Anya hit the ground at an oblique angle and slid along the tiles onto the slope where she disappeared out of the soldiers' line of sight.  
  
Still turning Buffy drew a knee high up into her chest and leapt up into the air. A soldier emerged from the doorway. He reacted quickly, raising his strange weapon to his chest. It wasn't fast enough. Buffy drove her foot out as hard as she could and the gunstock hammered him right between the pectorals. He grunted and flew straight back against the wall hitting it with all the grace of a three-cheese pizza. Another soldier, this one carrying a long knife took his place but Buffy was still moving forwards. She jabbed her fingers into his forearm and the knife spun into the air. Still turning she extended one foot and raised the other from the floor to his jaw as fast as she was able. His lights winked out and he went down like a sack of hammers.  
  
Buffy caught the knife and swept it to her side. It parried the edge of another blade that had been moving in her direction and threw sparks across the corridor. A few fast punches dropped that cretin.  
  
The door was still open and this was a problem, their position would have been reported by now. Reinforcements would be on the way and she had as yet no idea how many were outside. She needed to put distance between them and Anya as well as blocking the corridor. The door!  
  
She snapped a push kick into the bottom third of the door and the bottom hinge blew out of the wall. A huge soldier squeezed through the doorway pushing his massive frame against Buffy. He tried to shimmy to her side but he was too big for such a delicate maneuver. Buffy went the opposite way and threw a roundhouse toward his head. He blocked it beautifully and countered with a right that went straight through her guard and connected hard with her face. The next thing she knew she was on the floor. He was above her and one huge boot was raised. She kicked at his knees and he crumpled as bones broke. Buffy flipped onto her feet and lifted him high into the air with an uppercut. He crashed back against the door and the top hinge blew. The giant teetered against the broken door as it bent and twisted in the doorway. Buffy chided her self, her aim had been off, she had hoped he would rip it right off.  
  
She ran at him and leapt up and went into the splits wedging herself high in the air. She stopped herself by placing a hand on his massive forehead. She bent his head back and he peered up at her. Then she drew back her arm until the elbow was touching the ceiling and drove a punch right between his eyes. His feet were squeezed out from underneath him and he did the Titanic in fast motion.  
  
The door flipped into the air and she caught it then dropped down and rammed it hard into him. He roared as a blunt guillotine caught him right across the abdomen. She pushed the top of the door into the opposite corner and he gasped as the contents of his lungs were forced out. A blue flash went off outside and twin Tazer needles stuck into the wood near her face. She ducked down out of their range and grabbed the axe. The door might not be locked but that would slow them down she hoped.  
  
She tried to run but the giant wasn't finished yet. He grabbed her ankle and pulled her down to the ground beside him. He yanked a grenade off his shoulder grip and put it into a wide smile. Holding the pin between his sweaty teeth he ripped it out and spat it at her.  
  
"You stop here demon. You're not having earth, I'll die first. We all will."  
  
Buffy twisted but his grip was maniacal and strong like Riley's roid rage. The grenade sprung open in his hand. Buffy raised the axe, his arm or her life; easy choice.  
  
Anya stepped past her and her big ugly easy sneaker chipped the grenade out of his hand and out the doorway. There was a scream of 'CHRIST!' from outside and Buffy heaved and broke free. She and Anya sprinted down the corridor.  
  
"We're all going to Hell. Yee hah!" screamed the giant and the grenade detonated. The entrance to the Initiative base collapsed dropping rubble into the corridor.  
  
"I got the elevator open. It only goes down."  
  
"Down it is then." Shouted Buffy as she passed the only soldier that had managed to get past her. The one she had knocked past her. The elevator doors were propped open and they ran down the slope and into the carriage colliding against the back wall. Buffy frantically searched for buttons that would take them down.  
  
"Its automatic I think." Shouted Anya, "I propped it open."  
  
She bent down and pulled the prop from between the doors. They slid closed and the lift immediately began to descend.  
  
Buffy sat down and tried to catch her breath. They were safe for the moment.  
  
"Anya. What's that?" She indicated the firearm Anya had propped the door open with. She was holding it in a very business like way across her chest.  
  
"I think it's a PK-46 Multimelter," she said reading the writing on its side. "I've decided to keep it."  
  
Buffy spat out some blood.  
  
"Anya. I really don't want any ones life on your conscience. Please don't use that. I'm not going to stop you but I'm begging you not to use that."  
  
"I don't have your powers. You are the Slayer. I'm just a girl but now I'm a girl with a gun and it's my right to protect myself and I'm going to. At least until they give us time to explain ourselves. That's fair."  
  
Buffy relented and checked her pockets for Mr. Pointy. In the same way an asthmatic likes to tap their inhaler Buffy liked to be sure Mr. Pointy was always close by.  
  
"Just make sure I'm well behind you when you fire that thing."  
  
"Sure. You point at it and I'll multimelt it." Anya made a few practice aims.  
  
"Do you even know what it does?"  
  
Anya stared at the trigger then put her finger in the end of the barrel.  
  
"Yes. Well, no. No I don't."  
  
"Well you've the amount of time it takes me to open the hatch in the roof to find out."  
  
  
  
Three.  
  
  
  
They were on a balcony looking down on Las Vegas' Luxor Casino. He had never seen anything as bright as the rift. Its light was so brilliant that it had the quality of a painfully loud rock concert. Giles followed Farwell along the balcony with one hand on the rail. The room they were looking out over was enormous; it would dwarf many British villages, thought Giles. In its center was the pulsing star that was the gateway to Hell, a man made Hellmouth.  
  
"Have you any idea what we should do? How we should proceed."  
  
Giles knelt against the barricade and squinted into the heart of the Tantalus.  
  
"Who is it? Who have you got in there?"  
  
"That's classified Rupert."  
  
"Oh bollocks. Tell me who that is. How long have they been in there, Terry?"  
  
Farness hesitated, "Nearly twenty hours."  
  
"Good Lord, the poor bastard. What are the dimension's chronological qualities?"  
  
"Unknown. Multiple times are manifest in this slide. It's possible that the Tantalus has experienced infinite millennia or that it has only been a nanosecond of consciousness.  
  
Whichever, I don't think he can stay in there any longer." Giles picked up on the sex of the Tantalus.  
  
"I'm afraid he's going to have to. To close the rift I will need to enter it myself. I sense that his power has been sufficient to hold the enemy at stalemate. If I join him I may be able to add what little I have to his own energy. That perhaps will tilt the balance in favor of the pit closing."  
  
"We can get you whatever you need. We have extensive collections of magic paraphernalia in our stores."  
  
"You can start by telling me how this happened. What did you do that opened the rift?"  
  
"I spoke of harmonics I did not speak of blood. Blood is the largest continuous organ that the body possesses. It goes everywhere and is the same in all extremities; blood is the essence of life. It is also the medium through which the vampire pathogen is commuted, an anti-life parasitism.  
  
But when all the components of biological life are removed from blood all that remains is seawater. Blood is the early evolutionary environment we still carry about with us. In the same way an astronaut carries oxygen into space so too do we carry the oceans from whence we came. The memory of blood is the memory of our DNA. This seawater, when examined, has a harmonic unique to each species. We hoped to learn the demonic harmonic and reverse it. Produce a weapon that we could use against them."  
  
"How many things went wrong?"  
  
"Only one thing, the first thing. We captured a suitable hostile. They were a species other demons called the Pnarwaidh. All the Pnarwaidh had zero fluctuations in their harmonic; each one was identical to the other. This should have been impossible, there should have been some dilution of the purity through generations of breeding. These demons were perfectly opposed to humanity. They were composed of pure anti-life. Nothing from our dimension permeated their existence at all.  
  
We tested the weapon on one of them. We derived its harmonic from their blood and reversed it, charged our weapon with its frequency and used it. We expected the creature to die. The hypothesis was that the opposing energy would obliterate it. Instead it went thermonuclear and the rift opened. It was as if the creature was a lock just waiting for the right key."  
  
"Who is the Tantalus?"  
  
"An on-base, non-military operative associated with general Markwell and Commander Finn."  
  
Giles shook his head.  
  
"What was going through your minds when you decided that I was the man to close the rift? I am nowhere near powerful enough. I'm a Watcher not a sorcerer."  
  
"Rupert to be honest I don't think anyone expects you to be able to close the rift. In fact I think it would be an inconvenience if you did. We just want you to go in and keep it stable for a bit longer. We've already got what we need from you."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"I believe the mistake we made was in reversing the creatures energy. We should have polarized the weapon. The only way to do that would be to extract the harmonic from a human with pure links to our past."  
  
Farness pointed at Giles elbow. Giles suddenly became aware of a small ache in the crook. He touched his arm sealed in the suit and it felt sore, as if he'd had an injection.  
  
"Very little was taken Rupert. It certainly proved commander Finn correct when he recommended you as the man we needed."  
  
"You plan to make a weapon out of my blood?"  
  
"Yes Rupert. You see its very good blood."  
  
*** ***  
  
Buffy wedged the axes blade into the seam between the elevator doors and turned it clockwise. The doors slid apart a few inches. It was all she needed. She peered through the crack.  
  
"Coast seems to be clear Anya."  
  
Anya nodded.  
  
Buffy squeezed her fingers into the fissure back to back and forced the doors open. She hopped out of the elevator shaft and hoisted Anya up. They ran down the corridor side by side with Buffy letting the axe hang loose in her hand and Anya with the Multimelter pointing directly ahead. It was only going to be a matter of time before the Initiative figured out where they were. There were only so many places people climbing down an elevator shaft would end up.  
  
"This is a maze," said Anya.  
  
Doors led off the corridor every few yards but they ran past them, wary that at any second one might open. Anya followed Buffy along a succession of turns and branches and down a flight of stairs until she realized that the Slayer had no better an idea of where they were going than she did.  
  
"Buffy stop. I have to catch my breath."  
  
"In a moment, when I'm sure we're safe."  
  
They were at the bottom of a stairwell. Buffy opened the metal fire door that led into the corridor beyond and then grabbed Anya by the scruff and flew with her straight across the corridor and through the door opposite."  
  
"Hey."  
  
"Shut up Anya. Please."  
  
The room was L shaped and apparently deserted. Buffy took it all in quickly. She could see three doors other than the one they had just come through. On their left was one that said 'Disposal", before them a pair of double doors that said 'Cells' and just to their right a third that said 'Surgery'. Opposite the surgery there was a long stainless steel bench with multi-positional lamps on it. Between the disposal and cells doors there were a series of deep sinks with surgical glove dispensers and first aid kits on the wall above them. There was a concoction of smells in the air.  
  
The obvious initial smell was that of lemons and bleach but under that artificially clean odor there was a deep animal stench that washing would never remove. It was a fecund and oily reek, as if a herd of large male mammals was frequently marched through the room on their way to rutting season.  
  
"Anya check the surgery."  
  
"Where are we?"  
  
"One of the Initiatives' Hostile holding centers. We should be safe here for a while. No one would expect us to surround ourselves with demons." Except Riley, she thought. If she had the time she would have got done on her knees and prayed that he wasn't involved in this. She didn't want to face dealing with an ex right now.  
  
Anya had thoughts of her own. She was ruminating over Buffy's use of the word 'safe'. In Anya's opinion that girl didn't know the meaning of the word. Safe meant secure and free from danger. Or it could mean a lockable box for keeping your money in when you weren't counting it. Safe did not mean what she was doing right now.  
  
'Safe' thought Anya as she shouldered open the surgery door and shouted, "Hands up."  
  
Nothing moved.  
  
"I mean it. Hands up or I'll turn you into the squishy guy from Robocop."  
  
Still nothing moved.  
  
"Okay," she said, "Safe Buffy. This rooms safe."  
  
It was a small room. Before her was another stainless steel bench with more of the directional lights, about a dozen gas cylinders and two computers. Anya set the multi-melter on the surgical table and walked around it to the computers. She moved one mouse and a Babylon 5 screen saver disappeared to reveal a desktop that looked vaguely familiar. She double clicked on a military green E icon. Access to the Internet appeared on the screen. She typed in Willow's address and typed in a quick message.  
  
*Buffy says we're safe. I'm not so sure. Tell Xander I love him. A. * She pulled down a few heart emoticons and then pressed send. No alarms went off and the screen returned to the desktop. Even soldiers must have friends she thought.  
  
Anya picked up the multi-melter and went back out into the L shaped room. She was alone. The Slayer was nowhere to be seen. Fear began to well under Anya's tongue like an abscess.  
  
"Buffy," she whispered, "Where are you?"  
  
There was no answer.  
  
"Buffy," she hissed.  
  
She tightened her grip on the weapon and tried the disposal door. It was locked. She turned and faced up the room towards the double doors that led to the cells. They seemed very far away and yet right at the end of her nose. She cautiously crept towards them until she could read a small warning on one of the doors.  
  
PNARWAIDH (250-499) NO UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS GRADE TEN HOSTILE  
  
  
  
Four.  
  
  
  
General Butch Markwell threw open the doors to his office and marched past his personal assistant. He didn't say anything to her; he didn't like her very much. She was ugly.  
  
He stormed into his private office with the P.A. chasing after him.  
  
"Captain Galloway is waiting for you."  
  
Captain Galloway who had been sitting at the Generals desk snapped to attention and saluted. "I have eyes Miss. Bush. Tell Finn I want to see him and Bush?"  
  
"Yes general."  
  
"Get out."  
  
A wide smile crept over Galloway's face as the doors closed. He waited for the general to speak.  
  
"Good job with the extraction, that pompous English bastard didn't know his ass from his momma's face when he got here."  
  
Markwell removed his uniform jacket and hung it over a punch-bag mannequin.  
  
"Did everything go according to plan?"  
  
"Almost to the letter sir." Galloway considered telling the general about the English man nearly dying when the polyresinous foam that they had secured him with blocked all his airways. He decided not to. It hadn't been his fault. The solvents the tech boys had given them had taken much longer to work than they were supposed to. Galloway's own head had been swimming in the fumes so it was no wonder that the Watcher had been so easy to deceive.  
  
"What's the situation topside?"  
  
"A civilian automobile collided with one of our garages. Minimal damage. Three civilians were involved. One has been detained, the other two, women sir, have minimal space left to work in. Their apprehension is imminent."  
  
The general bared his teeth at the thought of two intruders being loose on his base.  
  
"Anything else?"  
  
"The detained civilian was a hostile."  
  
"Really? Treat them all as hostiles. Galloway, I want them on a dissection table five minutes ago. Do you understand me?"  
  
"Yes sir."  
  
Markwell ripped a tissue from a box on the table and blew his nose. Then he wiped sweat from his brow with the same rag.  
  
"Where is the hostile now?"  
  
"Forgive me sir but I anticipated your next order. He's on your range. Alley three."  
  
"Excellent. Monitor the situation topside. Dismissed."  
  
Galloway saluted and left the private office. The door didn't close. Finn marched in.  
  
"Sir?"  
  
"Come with me Finn, brief me as we walk."  
  
Riley followed Markwell through the door that led from his private office to his private gun range. The general's quarters were there, at the top of the range surrounded by guns. Markwell walked along a small corridor then up a flight of steps while riley talked. He swept aside a dark curtain and stepped into his pride and joy with the very unique targets.  
  
"Butch." Said a woman in a deep and throaty growl. The woman adjusted her demeanor as she realized that the general was not alone.  
  
"Commander Finn. So good to see you again."  
  
"Miss. Jackenzie. How are you?"  
  
Markwell ignored the woman who was sitting at a small circular table that had only room for two. There was an open bottle of wine before her and her glass was full.  
  
"So the English man's blood was a fit?"  
  
"Almost exactly sir. Farwell's people ran a refinement program on the harmonic and it had ninety-nine point oh four relevancy. Eight percent above predicted."  
  
"Excellent. When will the weapon be ready?"  
  
"I was on my way to check progress before I was called here. Very soon I am assured, well before division two will be in position."  
  
"Again excellent. How goes the deployment?"  
  
"Division one is in place at the gate waiting to go into the rift. They are awaiting download as soon as Farwell gives us the go ahead. Ariel gold is at seventy percent readiness; six more Hueys have to come down the chute before Division two can start their descent. Two hours maximum sir."  
  
Markwell referred to his watch and his eyes inadvertently flicked in Miss. Jackenzies direction. He walked towards her but ignored her smile and reached past her for a large rifle on the wall." He took some ammunition from a red box and slotted two enormous shells into the barrels and put the remainder into his pockets.  
  
"What do you think of our tactics Finn?" Markwell put the stock of the powerful weapon to his shoulder and took aim at the squirming hostile fifty yards away.  
  
"I think Mr. Giles said it best when he said risky."  
  
Markwell tensed.  
  
"Expound."  
  
The general closed one eye and peered along the barrel and aligned the target with the hostiles right knee.  
  
"Sir, permission to speak freely?"  
  
Markwell nodded almost imperceptibly and squeezed the trigger. The report was deafening and the general grunted with the force of the recoil. The creatures leg joint came apart at the seams shredding denim and spraying gluts of gore over the wall it was restrained to. White knuckles of bone could be seen protruding from the injury. The hostile thrashed wildly against its restraints. The tape over its mouth reduced the volume of its pain.  
  
Riley stepped forwards until he could see the hostile the general was shooting at. It was second from the left of six.  
  
"Sir with respect I think we are acting rashly."  
  
Markwell raised the gun and punched a hole the size of a baby's head through the hostile's chest. He found that usually quietened them down, stopped them from moving about. All that wriggling spoilt his aim.  
  
"There has been no movement on the enemy side for almost as long as the rift has been open. I believe that we must assume they are doing exactly as we are. Massing their troops and preparing for invasion."  
  
Markwell broke the gun and the empty cartridges popped out. He loaded two more and snapped it shut. It went back to his shoulder. He was giving Riley room to talk. Whether he was truly interested in what the commander had to say or whether he was just seeing how much rope Riley wanted to hang himself with was unclear.  
  
"It all depends upon the timing. Under current conditions the Tantalus could fall apart at any moment. We can no longer predict how long he can keep the rift stable and we are not at present able to defend our selves sufficiently."  
  
"So what is your conclusion Commander Finn?"  
  
Markwell dropped the target to the hostile right hip. He wanted to see if he could make the leg come off.  
  
"The logical path would be to close the rift altogether. We know where they are. They have always known where we are. We come off better in the current battle."  
  
"But what about the war Finn? Don't represent your men. What does the warrior in you say?"  
  
Markwell squeezed the trigger again but this time the creature shifted to the side and the bullet punched a hole the size of a fist out of the wall. Markwell cursed, he hated to miss. And the expression on the creatures face wasn't helping his blood pressure. It flipped him the bird, its hand still caught in the restraint. That wasn't going anywhere. Markwell emptied the final chamber into it and fingers flew in all directions.  
  
"The war sir? The commander in me feels we should cut our loses now. But the warrior I have been trained to be believes that we should take every thing we have and shove it down their throats. I think the original plan to take the fight to the demons and cut their evil off at the source is correct. I believe the reasoning behind opening the rift in the first place is sound. I say we invade Hell and the risks be damned."  
  
Markwell held the gun in the crook of his arm.  
  
"You surprise me Finn. I really didn't think I was going to be able to leave this room alive."  
  
"Sir I am a soldier and I am a damn fine one. I am also Initiative. I know exactly what we are up against. When you have the perfect headshot you don't waste time putting on a bayonet in case it goes wrong. You take your shot."  
  
Markwell slid another two bullets into the rifle barrels.  
  
"Enough innocents have died. We can't wait tens of thousands of years to try this again. The ape-men did it before. Its up to us not to drop the ball now."  
  
Markwell nodded.  
  
"Check on the weapons status and get your ass down to Division one. You're leading us in Finn. Dismissed."  
  
Riley saluted and left the room. Markwell watched the curtain long after Riley had gone through it. A soft hand sliding around his waist brought him back.  
  
"Can I have a go?" purred Olivia.  
  
"Certainly." Markwell handed her the rifle but she shook her head and held up an Uzi.  
  
"More my style."  
  
Markwell leaned the elephant gun against a wall and stood close behind her.  
  
"He had no idea I was supposed to be dead did he?"  
  
"No. Commander Finn is as he says a fine soldier. What he is not however is a liar. If he had had to lie about your circumstances the Watcher would have detected our deception and our hold over him would have been lost."  
  
Olivia flipped off the safety obviously bored with that topic now.  
  
"Does it hurt them?" she asked.  
  
Markwell looked at the hostiles mutilated body and the blood that was literally running out of it. Innocent blood. Blood from those that had died to keep this parasite alive.  
  
"Not enough." He growled as Olivia not waiting for an answer squeezed the trigger and emptied the whole magazine into Spike.  
  
  
  
Five.  
  
  
  
Gingerly Anya separated the doors.  
  
"Buffy?"  
  
A corridor ran directly away from her into a long room with walls composed of glass panels. She couldn't see the Slayer. The lighting level was low but not so dim that it would hide Buffy if she had been in sight. Murmuring filled the air along with a stronger version of the musky stench from the L shaped room.  
  
Anya was about to call out the Slayers name again but didn't; she was afraid, very afraid. Her mouth was bone dry and burnt when she tried to swallow. She slowly walked forwards with the Multimelter ready to shoot anything that moved. She wished Xander were here to rescue her but at the same time was happy that he wasn't in case he got hurt.  
  
Anya put her back against a wall and inched towards the first Pnarwaidh holding cell. She peered across the corridor into the square shaped cell. Adrenalin squirted through her body making her shake. She couldn't see anything yet. She pressed on and her back moved off the brickwork and slid onto a glass panel. Suddenly she saw one. It was squatting in the far corner of its cell.  
  
It was an oval shaped creature about waist height and was the color and texture of a car tire. It had two flat little feet, which its rotund belly perched upon like an incubating penguin. Two scheming red eyes were its only facial features. It shuffled sideways and looked at the woman on the other side of the glass. Anya cocked her head at the demon. It didn't look that dangerous, in fact it looked a bit docile. Comical even, she relaxed slightly.  
  
Her peripheral vision picked up movement behind her. She whirled round just in time to see the Pnarwaidh in the cell she had her back to launch itself at her. A thin slit that ran around its center yawned apart to reveal a mouth full of ferocious fangs. Its teeth were enormous and thin and as the Pnarwaidh yawned open like an evil Pac- man Anya realized that a bite from that animal would be like falling onto a thousand pitchforks.  
  
It struck the glass with an enormous impact that didn't seem to phase it in the slightest and gnashed at her. Thick clots of viscous fluid flew from its jaws and all over the inside of its cell. Anya stepped back her heart hammering in her chest. Another loud impact came from behind her as another Pnarwaidh launched itself at the food. The glass pane shook in its frame.  
  
"Buffy. Where are you?"  
  
"I'm here Anya."  
  
Anya jumped. She recognized Buffy's voice immediately but her body was wound too tight not to react. She ran up the corridor in the direction of Buffy's voice. On either side of her Pnarwaidh launched themselves at her in frenzied but futile attacks. She screamed as she ran unable to stop herself. The Slayer was kneeling in front of a cell with two of the demons in it.  
  
"Buffy. What are you doing?"  
  
"What are these things?"  
  
"Demons, demons with more teeth than brains. Come on Buffy lets go."  
  
"There's something about these things. Something different. I can hear them in my head, whispering. They know who I am and they're terrified. They think I'm here to kill them."  
  
"Buffy don't wig out on me. Giles. Soldiers. Guns. Remember?"  
  
"I know," said the Slayer getting to her feet, "but there is something so familiar about these things. I know what their blood tastes like. I know what sound they make when they die I have killed countless millions of their kind and yet I've never seen them before in my life."  
  
The Slayer stared at the Pnarwaidh with a blank face and the demons in turn cowered in a corner excreting a thin brown liquid.  
  
"Do you want to know what they remind me of?"  
  
Anya didn't wait for an answer. "Testicles."  
  
Buffy stared in shock at the woman.  
  
"I've just realized it. They are exactly like a pair of balls. Look"  
  
Buffy looked and very slowly a smile began to grow across her face. A small laugh escaped.  
  
"They're a bit bigger than I'm used to seeing," she said getting in on the joke.  
  
"Oh that reminds me of when I was a vengeance demon. It was about two hundred years ago I think. I was called to exact vengeance on a man who had been unfaithful. Same old story you know? Sticking it about all over the place. I thought it was going to be just another job but when I laid eyes on him.Oh.my.God."  
  
"Good looking?"  
  
"I was gagging for it the second I saw him."  
  
Buffy was laughing hard now.  
  
"He was a slave on a plantation and I can understand why he was unfaithful, all that sweaty Southern heat and slow moving water and women virtually throwing themselves at him."  
  
"What did you do?"  
  
"I took the form of a Southern belle and faked a fainting fit as I walked past him. I didn't have to fake too hard; he was hard at work and all sweated up. He swept me up in his arms and escorted me back to the main house."  
  
"How romantic."  
  
"Yeah. He escorted me through the orchard, then he escorted me through the stables and then he took me round the back and escorted me through the basement."  
  
"Anyah Harris! You brazen hussy." Buffy had to lean one hand against the glass pane she was laughing so hard.  
  
"Oh what. Xander's family hadn't even come to America at that time. I think the zip code rule might be in effect."  
  
Suddenly Anya stepped forward and punched Buffy hard on the shoulder.  
  
"Ow. What was that for?"  
  
"You deserved it. Do you have any idea how difficult it is being your friend? Look at all this trouble I am in and it's all because of you."  
  
"Anya. I 'm sorry. Its not easy for me, I'm the Slayer. I wish I wasn't but there's nothing I can do. This is just my life."  
  
"Well you make it other peoples lives too. Do you have any idea how sad Xander would be if I died?" A tear ran down her face.  
  
"I don't want to make Xander sad."  
  
"Neither do I Anya." Buffy stepped forwards and gave her a big hug.  
  
"We're going to get out of this. I promise."  
  
Anya sniffed away a tear that was bobbing at the end of her nose.  
  
"Can we get Rupert now please? I don't want to be here anymore. I just want to go home and snuggle up with my man."  
  
Buffy picked up the axe.  
  
"I think we should stop running," she said, "I think Riley is here and we should give ourselves up to him and go from there. I don't want anything to happen to you. I couldn't face having to tell Xander."  
  
Buffy's bottom lip began to tremble.  
  
"Seeing him cry would kill me."  
  
"He would cry and cry and cry if I died."  
  
"It would break his beautiful and precious little heart."  
  
The two women held each other and had a good weep. After a minute they parted feeling much better about their situation.  
  
"I must look a sight," said Anya.  
  
"Rough doesn't cover it girl. Let's go give ourselves up."  
  
Anya smiled.  
  
"Giving up is good."  
  
"So what happened to him?"  
  
"Who?"  
  
"The stud."  
  
"Well I had cursed him so when the Klan found out he had been fooling around with a lady of the house they tied a rope around his feet pulled him into a tree and lit a bonfire under him."  
  
Buffy gasped.  
  
"That's the thing I don't get about people. I never did when I was a demon and I still don't. Killing each other over color. Evil doesn't care about what color you are. It just cares about the depth of your soul. You'd think people would have worked that out by now."  
  
"I think they have, a lot of them just don't care."  
  
"So why do you waste your time saving them then?"  
  
"Because I'm the Slayer and I have to care for everyone else."  
  
"That sucks."  
  
Buffy shrugged.  
  
"If it hadn't been me called it would have been some other poor soul."  
  
"I'm glad I wasn't called."  
  
"I think the world is probably glad its not you Anya."  
  
*** ***  
  
Riley marched down the corridor. Don't think about it he told himself. You know what you have to do so do it. Just don't think about it. He stopped at his quarters and stocked up his rib compartment with biotinylated plasma and then put two more containers in each of the thigh pockets of his combats. There was a photograph of a beautiful blonde on his table. He allowed himself a moment to give her one last look then left. He went directly to the weapons laboratory.  
  
*** ***  
  
"Is that everything you think you will need?"  
  
Giles ran through a mental checklist of the magical ingredients that he would need to enter the rift.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"I'll return soon." Farness turned to leave but Giles called him back.  
  
"One last thing. Would you have any Iban fertility statues in your stores?"  
  
"Iban? As in the Borneo tribe of headhunters?"  
  
"That's them."  
  
"Do you need one?"  
  
Behind his mask Giles smiled ghoulishly.  
  
"Yes please," he said.  
  
"I'll see what we can do."  
  
Perhaps it was the close proximity to Hell or perhaps it was because he had been pushed too far this day; whatever the reason, an idea had just occurred to Giles. And it was one nasty little viper of an idea.  
  
"Thank you Terry."  
  
  
  
Six.  
  
  
  
Riley swept open the doors of Farness' weapons laboratory. It was untidy and relatively empty. One of Farness' assistants, a pleasant young woman with large breasts that Riley usually found difficult to ignore approached him.  
  
"What is the status of the weapon?"  
  
"Commander Finn, I am happy to tell you that we have had complete success in transferring the new harmonic to the Disruptor. I am so excited, this is the culmination of years of hard work and I know that I may be speaking out of turn but I must impress upon you how integral Professor Farness has been in its conception and realization. The Professor is too modest a man to ever blow his own trumpet but I really must ask you to convey to General Markwell."  
  
Riley didn't have time for this shit. He bent his wrist and a hypodermic needle projected from the back of his hand. He stepped forwards and plunged it into the front of her neck delivering a paralyzing dose of niphedipine to the woman. A look of intense surprise crossed her face before the drug took effect. He caught her as she fell.  
  
"Some help please." he called out.  
  
There were only two other doctors in the room. They were both standing at a construction table and Riley could see the Disruptor placed between them. One ran over. Riley handed the female doctor to him then injected him too. He eased their bodies to the ground.  
  
The third man had seen exactly what had happened. He stared wide-eyed at the cyborg. Riley retracted the syringe and walked up to him.  
  
"I have a few questions for you. I want you to answer them quickly and honestly and when I tell you to I want you to turn your back to me. Understand?"  
  
"Please don't kill me. I have a family."  
  
"Is the weapon primed?"  
  
"Oh God. Yes."  
  
"Have you downloaded the harmonic to the Invasion force?"  
  
"No there wasn't time we were just about to put it on the network."  
  
"Where is the original harmonic filed?"  
  
The doctor placed a hand on the computer beside him.  
  
"Were any copies made?"  
  
The man shook his head. His face had grown ashen with fear.  
  
"Good. Now please turn around."  
  
"Please.don't.for the love of God I haven't done."  
  
Riley coiled his flesh and blood arm around the man's neck and squeezed. He counted to three when he felt his knees weaken and gently set him on the floor. He would regain consciousness in about fifteen minutes and unlike the other two he would probably go through the whole experience without losing control of his sphincters.  
  
He disconnected the Disruptor, it was primed with Giles harmonic but its fuel cells were empty. Riley quickly searched through the lab until he found what he was looking for. It was a transfer cable with terminals that would allow him to attach the weapon to his own plutonium power source.  
  
He hefted the weapon then raised his metal fist and brought it down hard on the computer the doctor had indicated. It flew apart spraying the soldier with sparks. Destroying the master copy of Giles blood harmonic before the ground and air divisions could download it would definitely stop Markwell in his tracks. More blood would have to be drawn from the Watcher before he could arm his invasion force and if Riley knew the Giles the way he thought he did then getting that blood would be easier said than done.  
  
Riley left the laboratory. There was no going back for him now. All the Initiative had to offer him was a court martial quickly followed by the death sentence. He wasn't ready to go out yet. Soon, but not quite yet.  
  
He had things to do. Most importantly he had to get to the rift before Markwell discovered his treachery and that was going to be difficult because the first thing he had to do was rescue someone he really did not like.  
  
*** ***  
  
Farness escorted Giles down a metal ladder that led down to the ground floor of the enormous underground warehouse. He slipped a rucksack off his shoulders and opened it. Everything Giles had requested was inside it.  
  
Farwell stepped back while Giles arranged the paraphernalia according to the spells he was about to cast. The scientist had requested that Giles specify the precise spells he would require and now Giles understood why. The books from which they came must have been digitized because the words to the incantations were printed on paper.  
  
Willow had once suggested that he do the same with his own collection. He was glad he hadn't. It just did not feel right reading Sumerian that hadn't been written in human blood.  
  
They were below the rift now. Giles tried to forget that it was there. This was going to require his full attention. A lot of years had passed since he had tried a spell of this magnitude and even then he hadn't been so close to Hell nor had he been alone. The Sex Pistols had been in the charts and his hair had nearly been down to his ass when he had last attempted to incant a spell that would take him across dimensions.  
  
"Something is wrong," said Farness. Even through the electronic earpiece Giles could hear the alarm in the man's voice.  
  
"Something is very wrong."  
  
The rift began to pulse at an irregular rhythm. Its spin began to slow and like a gyroscope steadily loosing momentum it began to wobble on its axis. The Tantalus had lost his grip on the rift thought Giles. His own participation would be academic if Hell came through first.  
  
"Oh God," wailed Farness, "They're coming. They're getting through. We're going to be too late." He dropped onto his knees as the rifts wobble became more pronounced and chaotic.  
  
It was changing size now, contracting and expanding wildly as something or someone struggled with the Tantalus to be allowed access to earth. Farness was praying feverishly and it was putting Giles off his preparations. He ran his finger over the facemask until he found the button that would switch off the speaker. He found it and was suddenly completely alone in a silent world.  
  
The rift was out of control now, pulsing like bombs going off in a balloon. It contracted violently as if it was being sucked into a single tiny point in space and then recoiled with a flash that made Giles feel like he'd been X-rayed.  
  
Monstrous tendrils escaped its confines and thrashed around in the huge room as something began to work itself free. Giles watched aghast as they grew in size and began to surge against walls miles apart. He tried to make out what they were composed off because they seemed to be masses of smaller bodies but he couldn't see properly.  
  
One tendril found the balcony and swarming along it quickly discovered the door to the antechamber that Giles had changed into his ridiculous jumpsuit in. An exit seemed to be exactly what the entity had been looking for because almost immediately a tidal wave of the demonic matter crashed to the floor and coasted across to the exit where it drained into the rest of the Initiative base.  
  
The rift steadied itself and returned to its pulsing normal state but the entity still had access to earth and was pouring more of itself into the base at a staggering rate. There was nothing more that Giles could do now. He would go into the rift and try and aid the Tantalus. If he succeeded he succeeded, if he failed he failed. It was in the hands of the Fates now. With that unreassuring thought he began the spell.  
  
  
  
Seven.  
  
  
  
Buffy clutched her head and screamed. Anya was caught completely off guard. One moment they had been chatting the next Buffy was spasaming on the ground. Anya dropped the Multi-melter and went to her friend's side. Was this an epileptic seizure? What was she supposed to do? What happened if Buffy choked on her tongue? There was no way she wanted to risk having her fingers bitten off.  
  
As suddenly as it had occurred the fit passed. Buffy whispered something. Anya bent closer.  
  
"What was that? What did you say?"  
  
"Duck." Said Buffy. Anya hit the deck.  
  
A presence of unimaginable malevolence passed through them and Anya relived every moment of pain and anguish she had ever experienced in an instant. Screaming just didn't make her feel any better at all.  
  
As it surged through the holding center the glass protective panes to every cell exploded outwards. They were still ten meters from the door.  
  
Buffy was on her feet first. A Pnarwaidh flew at her and she cut it in two with a backhand that would have made Dennis Williams weep for joy. Anya was close behind the Slayer; she scrambled for her weapon narrowly avoiding another attacking demon. Its jaws snapped shut on thin air with a sound like a bear trap. It swiveled for another bite but Buffy brought the axe down on its head with all the force she could muster. Its blade bounced off the floor tiles.  
  
Anya looked up the corridor and wished she hadn't bothered. It was swarming with chattering level ten hostiles. She got her hand around the Multi-melters grip, aimed it forwards and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened.  
  
"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuucckkkkkk."  
  
Buffy was surrounded by Pnarwaidh but she seemed to be coping. They were chomping and biting at her but her axe was faster than their minds and jets of brown liquid followed the trail of its blade. Anya examined the weapon. It was chrome, it had a trigger and there was an end that bad things came out of. Why wasn't it working? Another Pnarwaidh came at her and she dived into one of the holding cells. She had cornered herself but she had nowhere else to go. There was an almost invisible seam running in a square on the top of the weapon. The Pnarwaidh hopped in a circle trying to position itself for another attack. Its jaws worked involuntarily as it either savored what it was about to eat or thought it already was eating.  
  
Anya pressed down on the square. One end rose gracefully out of the body of the gun. It had a small computer screen. Anya touched it and a series of small green bars stacked themselves one on top of the other. The Multi-melter began to hum.  
  
The Pnarwaidh leapt into the air propelled by its infeasibly short legs and its mouth gaped open, its teeth separating as if spring loaded.  
  
Anya pointed the weapon at it and squeezed the trigger. This time the result was far more impressive. A thick jet of ionic plasma heated to one half the surface temperature of the sun struck the demon dead on and vaporized the top half of its body. The bottom half hit her hard in the leg and the limb went numb. She hobbled forwards and leaned out of the holding cell. The Pnarwaidh had organized themselves and were massing on the Slayer who unbelievably was still swinging the axe faster then they could replace the corpses. Buffy made eye contact with Anya and the message that she couldn't keep this up indefinitely was communicated.  
  
Anya stepped out into the corridor and turned her back on the Slayer. Holding the Multi-melter parallel with the floor she squeezed the trigger. The plasma weapon cut a swathe through the Pnarwaidh. Bodies burst like blisters filling the air with intestines and gore. She fired again and again. The heat from the weapon was incredible and she could feel her body break out in a fierce sweat as the holding center caught fire. She swept it from side to side decimating their numbers. Unsure what to do with this strange phenomenon the Pnarwaidh did what came naturally and tried to bite the plasma stream. Those that were fast enough didn't live long enough to regret it.  
  
"Anya."  
  
Anya turned. Buffy was leaning in the doorway holding it open for her.  
  
"Come on."  
  
Anya fired one last blast and sprinted for the door. She ran past Buffy and into the L shaped room. Buffy followed her and slammed the doors shut. Almost immediately the Pnarwaidh started attacking it. Buffy dropped the axe and put her shoulder to it.  
  
"I can't hold them forever. Run for it. Surrender to Riley if you can. I'm so sorry."  
  
Anya checked the small computer screen. Most of the bars had turned red but two were still green. She hoped it would be enough for what she had in mind.  
  
"I have an idea."  
  
She ran down the room and kicked the surgery room open. Then she went to the door that led back out into the hallway they had originally entered through. She checked the angle. It was good.  
  
"Buffy when I say let go and get past me fast."  
  
"Anya."  
  
"Just do it."  
  
Buffy nodded and gore dripped from her face. The Pnarwaidh were incredibly strong and after the intense fight she had little strength remaining. She was out of ideas and places to run.  
  
"On three." shouted Anya, "One."  
  
".twothree." and Buffy let go off the doors and ran towards Anya. The Pnarwaidh spilled from the holding center. Buffy slipped in demon juice but quickly righted herself and barreled towards Anya. The Pnarwaidh were right behind her snapping at her heels but the Slayer was faster. She dived past Anya and sprawled out into the hall hitting the door to the stairwell.  
  
Anya lowered the Multi-melter, took aim at the gas cylinders chained to the wall of the surgery and fired. The plasma gushed over them like lava as Anya kept the trigger depressed. A Pnarwaidh hit her just as the final green bar went red.  
  
*** ***  
  
Riley ran down the corridor at a respectable pace. He didn't want to arouse attention but he still had a long way to go. Suddenly alarms went off in the silicone and wires side of his head. A virtual representation of the base appeared behind his eyes. Something was coming. The sensors were unable to give him any clearer idea of what it was. They were simply registering a threat, a monstrous threat approaching fast.  
  
Something small moved at the end of the corridor. Riley focused in with his bionic eye and shook his head at what he saw. It couldn't be.  
  
Another quickly joined it and then two more appeared. Riley was about to perform a systems check for glitches when from around the corner a wave of flesh slapped against the wall and swelled towards him. It roared down the corridor. There was no time to plug in the disruptor. Thinking quickly he looked about. Three meters away was a grill to the air circulation and filtration system. He put one leather clad steel foot to it and it folded in half. Ripping it off completely he crouched down and pushed his heavy body into the shaft.  
  
The wave swept past him. He had the distinct feeling that part of it stopped to observe him before moving on as if he didn't interest it.  
  
Whatever. He had a job to do. It wasn't bothering him so he would return the favor. With a thought the map of the air tunnels was added to that of the base. He chose his destination and the shortest route appeared. It wasn't good; he felt that he was going to be too late. Finn started to crawl.  
  
  
  
Eight.  
  
  
  
The gas cylinders exploded. They were full of oxygen and the force of the detonation was felt at the surface of the base. An enormous fireball spread through the holding center destroying the Pnarwaidh, even ones that had been too scared by the presence of the Slayer to leave their cells.  
  
The hostile that had planned to sink its teeth into Anya was killed instantly. It took the explosion side on and was pancaked against the wall above Buffy. Anya was knocked sideways by its attack but the force of the explosion was so great that it still caught her and drove her against the same wall. Her head hit the brickwork at a nauseating velocity quickly followed by the rest of her body. Buffy managed to catch her before she hit the floor but it was clear that she was too late to do any good.  
  
Buffy held Anya in her arms and begged her to live. Anya opened one eye for one was all she had remaining.  
  
"Somebody help me. I need a doctor. Please somebody help me."  
  
Anya tried to say something.  
  
"Don't talk Anya. You're going to be ok. I promised and you will. It's all going to be ok."  
  
Yellow cerebral fluid ran out of Anya's right ear and over Buffy's hand.  
  
"Oh dear God someone help us." Tears were streaming down Buffy's face.  
  
Anya reached up towards and then past Buffy. She tried to speak again. Buffy smoothed her hair and shushed her.  
  
"A baby," said Anya, "Look a baby. Xander and I were going to have lots of babies."  
  
"You still will. Fight Anya. Oh God oh God oh God I'm so sorry." At that moment in time Buffy Summers hated herself more than at any other time in her life. This was her fault. She was nursing a dying friend; mortally wounded trying to protect her worthless self and here was Buffy with hardly a scratch.  
  
A baby crawled past Buffy, then stopped and looked at her with the black eyes of a shark.  
  
Buffy stared at it. She wiped tears from her eyes and stared some more.  
  
"A little baby," said Anya. She held out her arms and cooed at it. Another joined the first. It casually crawled close and stared at Buffy with the same dead eyes.  
  
"What. The. Fuck?" said Buffy.  
  
Something hit her on the back and washed all over her. She grabbed hold of Anya and held her tight to her body. They were both carried along before Buffy could get her head out to see what was happening. Little hands grabbed and tore at her as a sea of little naked dead eyed babies swarmed all around them. She began to feel a pull. The wave of flesh wanted to take them back the way they had come. Buffy tried to resist them but there were too many and gradually she was moved against her will. Quickly her energy reserves were depleted and she stopped fighting. She pulled Anya close and relaxed waiting to see what was going to happen next.  
  
The spawn of Ishosantos carried her like a piece of flotsam past the holding center, deeper into the Initiative base and straight down into Hell.  
  
*** ***  
  
Giles realized that he had a tendency to pick the most inopportune times to doubt his own sanity. Here he was, crouching under the most profound threat humanity had faced in thirty millennia attempting to perform a spell that was beyond his meager abilities while at the same time interweaving it with a complicated transportation spell.  
  
There was no way he was ever going to be able to pull it off. Perhaps if the rift would stay stable for two minutes he might make a go of it but no. The bleeding thing wouldn't stay still for a second.  
  
The entity that had come through had started to retreat. Either Riley's men had found a way to fight it off or it had found what it was looking for and was heading home. Giles doubted that it was the former. He just didn't get that lucky.  
  
It was retracting at a tremendous speed, sucking its extensions back into Hell. Giles tried to concentrate on the spells. On the ground before him the magic circle was growing in intensity. He was nearly finished. A few more verses and he would find out whether the Fates had success or failure in mind for him.  
  
Something made him raise his head. His mouth was still reciting the words but for some reason he knew his attention was required elsewhere.  
  
The entity had almost completely returned to Hell. A final tendril extracted itself from the antechamber and slithered back across the balcony. There was something inside it. He strained to make it out. A hand poked out of the convulsing mass. Then a head bobbed up for a second and flicked a mane of blonde hair about it.  
  
Buffy.  
  
His young charge struggled to the surface and Giles could see another body under her own.  
  
It was Buffy.  
  
At that moment Buffy saw her Watcher. His heart broke as he saw her mouth his name. There was a look of sheer terror on her face. Giles wanted to stop and help her but the spell was nearing completion and had taken on a life of its own. He was nothing more than a conduit for the energies he was channeling.  
  
Buffy was shouting something at him but with the facemask on he had no idea what it might be and then she was shooting up into the rift and was gone. Swallowed by Hell. Both spells came to a conclusion at the same time, exactly how he had planned it. He felt the dimensional spell begin to take effect and reached for the Iban fertility statue. He had planned to close the rift and thereby screw Farness' and the general's plans but as he threw the statue into the circle, an action which completed the transportation spell, he knew that he was going to have to change those plans. Buffy was in Hell. He would have to keep the rift open long enough for her to escape or else she would be trapped there. He hoped that the transportation spell had worked as well as the dimensional one or else he and the Tantalus as well as the earth were royally buggered. With that final thought Giles was pulled into the rift.  
  
*** ***  
  
General Markwell cupped one of Miss Jackenzies' warm breasts and nuzzled it hungrily. Nothing turned him on more than the smell of gun oil on a woman. She put one hand to the back of his head and pressed his face against her harder. Caught up in the passion the general grabbed her buttocks and lifted her off the ground pushing her against the table. She wrapped her chocolate legs around him and squeezed the erection pounding in his slacks. He grunted and tried to get both her nipples in his mouth at the one time. Then for no reason he was falling forwards. He hit his pecker on the edge of the table and curled up on the floor in agony. He didn't understand what had happened. One moment he had been about to get laid and the next.denied. She just seemed to have disappeared into thin air.  
  
  
  
Nine.  
  
  
  
Riley gave the metal grill before him a hard shove and it sprang loose from its housings and clattered noisily to the floor. He had no time for subtlety and patience any more. He could hardly believe what he had seen in the corridor behind, if it was not for his remaining real eye he would have sworn it was some hallucination brought on by his newly incorporated hardware. Waves of babies were not the norm in most of the bases he had been stationed in.  
  
He slid his awkward frame forwards and simply let gravity do the rest. The sound of him landing disturbed several demons in holding cells waiting to go onto the alley. A hairy simian creature with elongated arms shrieked and battered the Plexiglas divider. It had obviously seen hostiles come off the range and knew what was ahead of it. In the adjoining cell a Kodo-Gundoth sat cross-legged on the floor. It raised two heavy eyelids and its yellow spines bristled slightly but other than that it showed no reaction to Riley's sudden appearance. They were intelligent animals with complicated speech patterns and a fighting style that Riley had studied and found to be totally unique. He stared at the striped, muscular demon. He might have a use for it.  
  
But first he had something else to do. The room was filthy; the normal standards of hygiene that applied to the rest of the base did not apply to these holding cells. These were only for moribund hostiles. Food, bedding and excrement littered the floor. In one corner lay Spikes crumpled black coat.  
  
Which one had it been? Second from the left. Because Riley was now behind the gun range that meant Spike was in the fourth from the right alley. There were five levers on the wall opposite the holding cells. He pulled the right one and a section of the wall swiveled round one hundred and eighty degrees.  
  
Riley had seen some horrific injuries in his time as a soldier. Among the worst had been the photos of himself after he had come back from the jungle. This was quite possibly worse. He undid Spike's restraints and literally scooped his destroyed body into his arms. It felt as if limbs were threatening to fall off, as if only the material of his clothes was holding him together. He had intended setting the vampire on one of the gurneys in the room. Instead he laid Spike down on the floor like a boneless chicken.  
  
Riley had never liked Spike. But he had fought beside him on occasion and he knew how he had felt about Buffy while Riley had been with her. It was tough to look at anyone who had gone through the amount of pain Spike had been put through and not be moved. That was where training came into the equation. It allowed you to do what had to be done. He paused, Buffy. It had been a long time since he had thought that name and not felt pain. It had been a long time since he had thought about that name period. How had she managed to find her Watcher? It had been his idea to tap Rupert Giles for his blood but it had been Markwell's idea to fill him full of crap about helping them to close the rift. 'Keep 'em guessing' seemed to be the general's creed when it came to dealings with others. Well two can play at that game thought the commander.  
  
"Spike? Can you hear me Spike?"  
  
Riley reached into his combats pockets and took out the four vials of biotylinated plasma. He pried the vampire's mouth open and poured the concentrated blood down its throat. Spike couldn't be dead. As far as Riley knew there were only four ways to destroy a vampire. Bullets would only do the job if they tore the head off. Although there was one enormous hole in Spike's throat his neck looked intact. Therefore Spike was alive, or undead or whatever, just in deep traumatic shock.  
  
Instinctually Spike's esophagus accepted the blood and he swallowed it. Riley tore the cap of another vial and poured more blood down his throat. From the corner of his eye he saw the Kodo-Gundoth stand up and watch him.  
  
Spike coughed slightly and his lips moved.  
  
"Lie still," ordered Riley though he was unsure whether Spike could hear him. He reached into a pouch on his belt and removed a large roll of Duct tape. He started with Spikes feet and slowly worked his way up Spikes body tearing away material and taping together the worst injuries. Spikes right knee took longer than almost the rest of his body and by the time Riley was finished bandaging Spike the whole roll of tape plus another vial of the blood were exhausted.  
  
The vampire moved his head and tried to say something. Riley bent closer to hear what he was saying but gave up when with a flutter the vampire went back to his unconscious state. Riley walked over to the Kodo-Gundoth's cell.  
  
"Do you want to live?"  
  
The demon hissed at him.  
  
"Do you want to live or would you rather die?"  
  
"Yawlasss lives." It had a sibilant voice that struggled with the English like a snake trying to recite Shakespeare.  
  
"For the moment. Do as I say and you will live, stay and you will die."  
  
"Do for liiivesss?"  
  
"That's better. I need you to look after the vampire. We are going to find his friend, when we do, follow her. She is your only way out of this alive."  
  
"Ssslayyerrr."  
  
"That's right, the Slayer. Take her friend to her and she will get you all out alive. Every other way you die." The Kodo called Yawlass was not stupid like the shrieking creature in the next cell. It nodded its head then joined its fists together.  
  
"Yawlasss liiivesss."  
  
"Good." Riley activated the glass doors and the demon stepped out into the room. It stretched and bared its teeth in pleasure at being released.  
  
"May-bee Yawlasss keel u-man. Free. Noh Ssslayyerrr."  
  
Riley gripped the neck of his tight jumper with both hands and pulled the material apart. It tore like tissue paper to expose a body of plastisteel. Other than his left shoulder, arm and side of his face Riley's body was all metal. Ugly thick staples linked the artificial to the biological.  
  
"Try me."  
  
The demon adopted a subservient posture and groveled at Riley's feet. He turned his back on it and went back to Spike. His eyes were stilled closed. He wished that vampires had a pulse. He had no way of telling how he was doing.  
  
"Come here." He said to the prostrate Kodo. "Carry him."  
  
The demon did exactly what he was told to do and slung Spike over his shoulder with one fluid motion. It wasn't gentle but Riley wasn't sure it mattered now anyway. He went to the one door that led out of the room and opened it. He had had enough of creeping around. He would try and get Spike to Buffy. He was sure that the Slayer would head directly for her Watcher, she had the unerring ability to be exactly where she was needed and that suited him fine. He was on his way to the rift anyway, to close it from the inside and take as many of whatever was on the other side with him as he did so. As he plugged the disruptor into his plutonium power source and drew his pistol he smiled. It would allow him to kill two birds with one stone. He draped Spikes coat over his shoulders, hiding the weapons and left the holding room followed by Yawlass and the vampire. He didn't notice that Spike's coat was heavier than it had any right to be.  
  
*** ***  
  
"What the fuck is going on down there?" shrieked the general down the line. Galloway cringed on the other end. Markwell had wired the head of division one expecting to speak to Finn. The second Galloway had answered he had known that something was wrong.  
  
"Where is Finn now?"  
  
"We have no idea sir. He was last seen on the way to the weapons lab."  
  
"Is it possible that the intruders have eliminated him?"  
  
"Its possible sir. Though unlikely, the intruders were last seen descending down a different drop shaft. There is something else sir. In fact several things."  
  
Galloway could hear the general hyperventilating at the other end of the line. He took a deep breath and continued.  
  
"One, the weapons lab was infiltrated. The disruptor is missing and the original file of the Watchers harmonic was destroyed. This occurred before the download could be preformed. All three divisions are in place though they are equipped with conventional weapons only.  
  
Two, an explosion was detected in the search area for the intruders. No bodies other than those of our own men have as yet been found. Prior to the explosion a powerful surge of supposed electromagnetic radiation passed through the base. Fire control was decimated and our men are having problems coping with the after affects of the explosion. We may have to evacuate shaft four.  
  
Three."  
  
"There are three?"  
  
"There are four sir. Three, the Tantalus temporarily lost control of the rift and an entity of unknown taxonomy compromised base security for approximately fifteen minutes. It has since withdrawn back into the rift though what it achieved in that time is as yet unknown.  
  
And four, the Watcher has disappeared. Farwell says he saw the English man enter the rift though the professor witnessed the entity exiting the rift and is currently in a state of shock. That's it sir."  
  
And five, added the general to himself, Miss tits and ass had disappeared. Just exactly how many double crosses were occurring here at the one time? The general thought quickly, it was what he was paid to do, and barked out a new range of orders.  
  
"Abandon efforts to save shaft four. Form the men into an infantry division that will follow divisions one and three in. Get Farness to his lab and get him to generate a new harmonic from the Watchers blood. Fill him with whatever drugs it takes but get it done."  
  
"Sir as far as I understand only a small amount was taken and it has all been consumed. No new harmonic can be generated without new blood."  
  
"Fuck! Finn that bastard, he has the disruptor. He's taking what happened to his girlfriend Egg personally. We have to find him; he has the last surviving copy in that weapon. He can't be allowed to pass through the rift. Do you understand Galloway?"  
  
"Yes sir."  
  
"Stand by, I'll be there in ten."  
  
"Sir? Current predictions estimate that taking the rifts recent oscillations into account the Tantalus will lose control again within the next forty minutes. What if we don't have Finn or the disruptor by that time?"  
  
"Then we do it the old fashioned way son. We don't shoot until we see the red of their eyes."  
  
  
  
Ten.  
  
  
  
Giles came to a sudden halt in a completely white environment. There was no horizon and no features of any sort. He could have been blind other than the fact that it was totally white and not dark. So this is what it felt like to straddle dimensions he thought and laughed slightly. He felt giddy and euphoric.  
  
In the distance a small speck of darkness appeared. Slowly he realized that it was coming towards him. He thought about running, but that was too earthy a concept for this place. It would be like trying to escape from the palm of the Buddha's hands yet never being able to pass the great pillars of her fingers. With nowhere to conceal himself Giles waited for the speck to reveal what it was. Perhaps he was not yet in the rift he thought. Perhaps he was actually moving towards the spot and that was the true opening to the dimensions. His human mind could not process the information it was receiving. He decided to wait and see what happened. Gradually and with deep laconic movements the dark spot approached him.  
  
"Hello." Said Giles to the enormous orange squid when it finally came close enough. He couldn't think of anything else to say. The gargantuan creature regarded him with flat eyes more alien than an immortal soul.  
  
"I think they are angels," said a small voice behind him.  
  
Giles turned and looked at a small blonde haired boy dressed in white sheets playing with a glowing sphere.  
  
"Ah," said Giles, "Ethan. How have you been?"  
  
*** ***  
  
Spike regained consciousness with the sudden violence of a heart attack. He thrashed on the Kodo's shoulder and even the demons abnormal strength could not restrain him. He hit the tiles hard and spasmed. His back arched and he let out a scream that Riley felt was one of the most chilling things he had ever heard. The Kodo backed away frightened by the pain and agony that scream represented.  
  
Riley was on him in a second.  
  
"Spike you have to shut up."  
  
"Oh that bastard. That vicious bastard."  
  
"Spike! We are not in a safe place. You have to shut up."  
  
"I thought.I thought I'd met some vicious animals but that psycho takes the biscuit."  
  
Riley hauled the vampire into a sitting position.  
  
"Markwell has a bit of a thing for hostiles."  
  
"Nah. Not him. The woman, I really thought she wasn't going to stop until I was dead. She just kept shooting and shooting.where are we?"  
  
"At the bottom of drop shaft one."  
  
"Can't say as I'm really surprised to see you here soldier boy. Place smelt of you lot the second I went through that wall. Jesus what happened to your face?"  
  
"If you're very lucky Spike I'll be dead before I have a chance to tell you. Can you stand up?"  
  
Spike tried but sagged back shaking his head. Riley indicated to the Kodo demon to assist Spike.  
  
"You bastard. That's my bloody coat you've got on."  
  
Riley whipped off the coat and threw it at Spike. It fell short of its target.  
  
"Jesus Arnie. You really have been in the wars. Got your own action figure yet?"  
  
"Stay here and keep quiet." Said Finn shouldering the disruptor and changing the pistol to his flesh hand, "I'll be back."  
  
*** ***  
  
"You look a bit different from the last time I saw you Ethan."  
  
"I'm very tired Giles. And I'm bored of this game."  
  
Giles hunkered down until he was on an eyelevel with Ethan.  
  
"What game are you playing?"  
  
"I have to keep the ball from touching the ground. I want to do some tricks. I'm great at toe tapping and bouncing it on my head but I'm scared what might happen if I drop it. I'm sure I could do loads but I'm scared."  
  
"I know you could too. It was the only physically demanding thing I think I ever saw you do."  
  
Giles remembered back to their teenage years and the skinny young man who could keep a soccer ball bouncing about his body for days. Giles had always been envious of that skill. Giles more than made up for it by actually being able to play soccer on the field.  
  
As soon as it came to actually kicking the ball rather than his usual balancing act Ethan's abilities seemed to evaporate. He was one of the greatest sorcerers Giles had ever met. That awareness of balance was innate in Ethan. Giles, being the child of a Watcher had some magical ability and had been introduced to that world at an early age. Ethan though was a natural. Together they had made a lethal combination.  
  
"I was good at it." Said Ethan talking of his ball control skills.  
  
"You still are. Are the angels making you play the game?"  
  
"No. They just want to see what happens. The people in the ball are making me play."  
  
"What are they saying?"  
  
Ethan shook his head. "Different things. Some times they want me to break it, other times they want me to protect it and sometimes they just want me to play with it to see what might happen. Do you have ice-cream?"  
  
"I'm sorry," said Giles and shook his head.  
  
"It's alright, its nice to have someone to talk to. Do you want to play with my ball for a while?"  
  
"No thank you." Giles looked at the offered glowing light and realized that what in Ethan's hands might be a ball would probably be something much different in his hands.  
  
"You know," said Giles, "What do you say to us all playing a game?"  
  
"The angel won't play. I already asked. He just swims about looking stupid."  
  
"I think someone else you know may be joining us. The three of us could play then eh, Ethan. It would be just like the old days."  
  
"I don't care." Snapped Ethan with sudden childish temper. "I don't care. I'm bored. Bored, bored, bored."  
  
Giles prepared himself to catch the rift, for all the good it would do, if Ethan decided to complete his tantrum by throwing it to the ground. Ethan looked slightly younger than he had been when Giles had first seen him. He was getting more tired. The Tantalus would eventually fall apart, either through some terrible twos pique of anger or when Ethan became so tired he reverted to an infantile state and no longer possessed the coordination and strength to hold the ball.  
  
The squid changed color, from orange to an anxious purple. Something appeared in the air before them. A little trickle of dots that steadily extended until it looked like a millipede.  
  
"Do you think they will have ice-cream?"  
  
"I doubt it." Said Giles then hurriedly added, "but you never know." When a dark expression crossed the child's face.  
  
The millipede extended, growing in all dimensions of shape. It was a person caught in a slow exposure photograph as they went through their lives. Starting out small and young, growing to maturity and then the beginning of the slow decline through old age to death. Jackie's whole life snapped together in a nanosecond and she was unceremoniously dumped beside Ethan. Giles could have refined the transportation spell to smooth her journey if he had wanted, but he had had too much on his mind at the time it was being cast and thought it might teach her a lesson. It was a dirty trick she had played on him. He had really thought she was dead, murdered by the Initiative to ensure his cooperation. However when he had washed his face in the water fountain after the briefing and his hand had turned red he had begun to suspect something was afoot. They had used red dye of some sort to try and fool him. As if a Watcher to the Vampire Slayer would not recognize false blood when he saw it.  
  
"Jazz." Cried the boy. "I'm so glad to see you."  
  
"Ethan? Is that you?" Jackie wrapped her arms around him but it wasn't a hug a grown woman normally gives a child. It was the hold of a woman beside herself with joy to see the man she loves alive and well.  
  
"Oh Ethan I'm so sorry. I had to do terrible things, I'm so sorry."  
  
Giles understood a lot in that moment. He stood up and stared down at them.  
  
"Jackie," he said quietly. "We have work to do."  
  
She stared up at him and wiped away a tear.  
  
"I'm so sorry Rupert. It wasn't my idea. It was that psycho Galloway's. You've no idea what he is like. He and Markwell hate everything that is not pure human. They needed your blood for their weapon and the more I understood about their plan to invade Hell the more I thought they were right. When they made Ethan form the rift I knew that they considered him to be no different to the monsters. They would only keep him alive as long as he was useful. You were the only person I could think of who I could trust. I couldn't let Ethan die. Please forgive me."  
  
Giles bit his tongue. He wanted to say that she hadn't trusted him, that she had used him, but what would be achieved by personal recriminations now?  
  
"We have more important things to deal with now Jackie. Ethan would you like to play that game I talked about?"  
  
"Yeah. Can Jazz play?"  
  
"It wouldn't be the same without her," said Giles.  
  
"The Scourges of Albion reunited," said Jazz as they joined hands.  
  
"Three of the five of us anyway." Said Ripper.  
  
"Its more than enough old chap," said Ethan in an adult voice. Giles looked at him and found himself staring at the man he had last seen being manhandled by the Initiative out of a Sunnydale motel. A big smile creased Giles face. He hated the trickster bastard but Ethan was the closest thing he had to a best friend.  
  
*** ***  
  
General Markwell exited the express elevator in Drop shaft one and marched out into the hall. He was dressed in full body armor, was armed to the teeth, high on amphetamines and prepared to give Hell a taste of their own medicine. If they could get the harmonic downloaded to the anti personnel disruptors all the tanks and choppers were carrying then they would win. He had no doubt. If they had to go in with traditional weapons then so be it. He would gladly lead the charge in his own personal tank. The one he called 'Tallulah' after an ex wife. Tallulah had two less crewmen than other tanks in the division and a large proportion of her rear was made up of nuclear warheads, very unlike the real Tallulah whose rear had mostly consisted of donuts. If he couldn't kill Hell then he was definitely going to give them something to think about.  
  
Something cold pressed against his temple and clicked. Butch Markwell stopped.  
  
"Finn. You better just kill me now and get it over with."  
  
"In good time general. Now move."  
  
  
  
Eleven.  
  
  
  
Buffy was experiencing a rushing sensation. She could not tell how long it had been going on for but she felt no pain, no fear, no nothing. It was almost a pleasant sensation. Anya was under her. That was all she was sure off. She held the girl tighter in arms that felt as big as the orbit of Jupiter. Then it was over. She was moving no more. She became aware of darkness, of heat and of wet air that hummed with insects and insectivorous life. She slowly opened her eyes. It was not as bad as she expected. In her arms Anya moved. Buffy let go off her and for some reason was not even remotely shocked when Anya unfolded a massive pair of wings. It seemed like the most natural thing on earth; or Hell at least.  
  
  
  
Twelve.  
  
  
  
The Kodo demon dumped Spike against the wall the second Riley was out of sight. Spike lay there and tried to regroup what faculties he had in working order. The flash of the muzzle and the incredible tearing pain that accompanied the sound of the bullets would be with him forever. The sensation of a thousand seamstresses tugging at his internal organs would never leave him. He would never forget the helplessness; never forget begging behind his gag for the pain to end. He had implored them to take mercy on his carcass and just stake him. But it hadn't happened. They had kept laughing and firing, as if it had been a joke; or even worse, a first date. He was still alive though. Their scents were branded on his brain and before his body was reduced to dust Spike would have his vengeance.  
  
He tried to think about something else because the thought of killing them brought on the fury and he couldn't spare the energy to vamp out right at the moment. Riley had saved him. Spike could hardly believe it. He had seen him at the top of the alley at one point and if the soldier had joined in he would not have been surprised. But he had saved him. What was that about?  
  
As he had led them down through the base Riley had briefed him on the rift and given him directions for getting Buffy back out to the surface. Spike couldn't remember a word he had said. He did however know up from down and if the sun had risen topside then he would sense it and be able to lead them towards it. That wasn't what was bothering him. It was the Slayer.  
  
She had abandoned him after the car accident. That wasn't too surprising, he would probably have done the same to her under the circumstances. He just couldn't sense her. Perhaps he had taken too much of a beating and was seriously below power. But he was a vampire and sensing the Slayer was a survival instinct amongst his kind. He just couldn't feel Buffy's presence at all. Riley had assured him that she would go straight to Giles and Spike agreed with his reasoning. If Riley then took Spike to where the Watcher was, Spike could either wait for her to show, or sense if she had already been there and track her down. Something was very wrong though; he just couldn't put his finger on it yet. Perhaps he was still too weak. He tried to stand and amazingly his knee took the weight. It hurt like crazy but the joint was slowly but surely knitting itself together.  
  
He struggled into his coat. It felt heavier than he remembered it being. Leaning against the wall he put his hands in his pockets and fingered half a dozen grenades. It came back to him. When he had gone through the wall after the accident he had not been immediately apprehended. He had been taken down by a few guards but had managed to struggle free without any migraines because he had not intended to harm them, just nick some weaponry. He had learnt this trick when dealing with aggressive humans. Intend to do something else that had the by-product of hurting them and sometimes the chip didn't kick in. He had been cornered soon after and had tried the misdirection again but this time the chip was having none of it and had laid him out flat for the soldiers just to pick up and take home.  
  
The blood Finn had given him had brought him back from the edge and allowed him to begin to heal himself but it was no good any more. It was artificial, it contained all the raw components but it had been manufactured in a laboratory. It stank of the Initiative and sterility. It would do him no more good. What he needed now was something with a bit more kick.  
  
He took his cigarettes from an inside pocket and lit one. Yawlass stared hungrily at him. Spike tapped the box and offered the demon one. It nodded its head up and down as it approached him and extracted a white tip from the container. Spike flicked the Zippo and deliberately fumbled the action, dropping it to the ground. Yawlass bent down to retrieve it and Spike smiled like a bear trap. He was weak but the demon was prone and that was more important. With a phenomenal effort Spike vamped out and lunged low and hard at the creature as it stood up again. He angled his head and slid it under the demons jaw line plunging his fangs into its throat. They slid into its flesh with a beautiful, lubricated sensation and immediately its blood began to flow into Spikes mouth. It tasted rank but even urine is palatable when you are dying of thirst.  
  
It beat his back but a vampire is never stronger than when it is feeding. Spike pounded the Kodo against the wall using violence to deny its right to life. The prey grew weaker as Spike grew stronger, sucking the life out of him and pressing against its abdomen in an effort to push more blood towards its neck. Spike was unable to stop himself thrashing his head and he tore a mouthful of flesh from its throat before sinking his fangs back in for more. He was completely lost in the ecstasy of taking a life. The demon had done nothing wrong, in fact it had helped him and what he was doing was evil and Spike loved every second of it's death.  
  
*** ***  
  
Riley rounded the corner with Markwell in an arm lock just as Spike let the Kodo's corpse fall to the ground. The vampire tilted back his head and laughed out loud.  
  
"For crying out loud Spike. I had a use for him."  
  
Spike whirled round and spread his arms, advertising his presence for all to see. He felt magnificent.  
  
"Shouldn't have left him with the Big Bad then should you Peaches."  
  
It was all the distraction Markwell needed. Arm locks were never easy to counter but he didn't need to. He whipped a tazer from his belt and reaching back over his shoulder pressed it against Riley's face and gave the cyborg all the voltage it had. Riley stiffened and toppled backwards like a felled tree with blue electricity coursing over his body. Spike caught his gun before it had completed one revolution and pressed it against Markwell's forehead. Butch had not allowed his years behind a desk to turn him into a slouch though. He was out of Riley's grip in an instant and backed against a wall raising the tazer to Spikes chest.  
  
"I know you," he said, "You're fitted with a restraining chip. You can't hurt me."  
  
Spike growled and pressed the gun barrel harder against him, the tazer would take a moment to recharge and he had to think fast. He owed this bastard a world of pain.  
  
"Not directly, no." he agreed, "but I'm betting on the ricochet being a killer."  
  
He slid the gun up Markwell's head and pointed it down the back of the general's skull.  
  
"I'm just going to shoot the wall and see."  
  
Spike squeezed the trigger. Markwell's face evaporated as the bullet bounced off the wall and tumbled between his eyes at forty meters a second. Spike's chip had no problem with him being violent towards human corpses and Spike emptied the rest of the magazine into the general making sure to leave the last bullet for his groin.  
  
"Spike," said Riley getting to his feet, "You're an idiot. A nasty, vicious killer of an idiot but an idiot none the less."  
  
"He had it coming."  
  
"That's as maybe but how do you suggest we get past the assembled divisions and to the rift without the general as a hostage."  
  
Spike shrugged and tossed the firearm aside.  
  
"Planning's not really my thing. I'm more of a doing type of guy. How about we throw a load of grenades at them and make a run for the rift."  
  
Spike took a few of the grenades from one pocket and showed them to Riley raising his eyebrows a few times.  
  
"You're not killing any of my men Spike."  
  
"Alright. Playboys then or something. Come on. Times a wasting."  
  
Riley thought for a second.  
  
"I think you may be onto something with the grenades."  
  
*** ***  
  
Commander Finn marched bare-chested between the assembled tanks of Division one. He stopped the first grunt he met.  
  
"Where are your smoke grenades?" he asked.  
  
"Sir?"  
  
"I need smoke grenades son. Where are they on your tank?"  
  
"Sir I think Captain Galloway is looking for you."  
  
I'm sure he is thought Riley. He reached past the private and ripped a box from the back of the tank. It contained two dozen smokers. His luck was in. He began to pull pins and throw them in all directions. Spike slipped from the shadows under the tank and moved beside him. Thick clouds of choking green gas began to fill the enormous holding room that led onto the floor the rift was on.  
  
"This going to be a problem for you?"  
  
"Don't breathe mate."  
  
Riley nodded and began to run between the tanks still lobbing grenades.  
  
At the front of the room were a series of cantilevered steel screens that would roll up to allow the divisions access to the rift. Riley headed for the wall between two of the screens. He distinctly heard Galloway's voice scream that he had to be stopped before he reached the rift and threw the last grenade in his direction. He dropped the box and lowering his metal shoulder hit the wall like a locomotive. Spike was through the opening before the whole of Riley's shadow was. Spike screamed. It was the brightest light he had seen since he had been turned into a vampire and for a second he thought Riley had tricked him and led him out into the sun.  
  
The screen doors began to roll up and Riley hauled Spike to his feet and the two began to run.  
  
"Where's the bloody Watcher? I don't see the Slayer."  
  
Riley ignored him and kept moving. He slid the disruptor from his shoulder and took aim on the rift. The gates were up high enough for infantry to squeeze beneath and bullets began to scream through the air around them. Riley stopped under the rift.  
  
"Spike. Give me a leg up."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Give me a leg up. I have to get into the rift."  
  
"What about me?"  
  
"Get Buffy's scent and follow it. Try and escape if you can. Now give me a boost I'm going to close it from inside."  
  
"You bastard. That's what you needed that brute demon for, to chuck you into the air. Well fuck off. I'm not doing it."  
  
Riley pointed the disruptor right at his face. It hummed.  
  
"This will make Markwell's bullets feel like a walk in the park. Now help me up."  
  
Spike reached into his pocket and slid a finger into the ring of one of the grenades.  
  
"Not a chance. You're on your own."  
  
The vampire began to back off.  
  
The infantry had crept closer and a bullet caught Spike in the arm ripping his hand out of his pocket.  
  
"The fate of humanity rests on the next few seconds Spike! I'm the only one that can save us."  
  
"Sorry mate. Seem to have a few problems of my own."  
  
Spike held up his hand to show Riley the extracted grenade pin still around his finger.  
  
The two shared a look.  
  
Riley sagged.  
  
"Spike. Excuse my French but you are definitely the stupidest son of a bitch I have ever met in my life."  
  
Spike was frantically struggling to get his coat off.  
  
Riley shielded the flesh side of his body from Spike and closed his eyes. He hoped the detonation would be strong enough to throw him into the rift otherwise it was all over and Hell had won.  
  
He heard Spike say, "Bloody well got it" and then the grenades went off in quick succession.  
  
  
  
To be concluded in Bad Blood: Part Three 


End file.
